Greg Tansey says ball is in Caley Thistle's court over new contract talks
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THE ball is in Caley Thistle’s court over a new contract, according to Greg Tansey.
John Hughes put a fresh deal for Tansey at the top of his summer priority list and the midfielder, who still has a year left to run on his contract, would be happy to sit down and talk.
Tansey is seen by Hughes as the lynchpin of his style of play and losing him would leave a gaping hole in the middle of the park.
A January tug-of-war between Caley Thistle and Aberdeen over Tansey, where Aberdeen believed they had met the midfielder’s release clause, left a sour taste for the former Stevenage man, who was helpless as both clubs wrangled over his future.
When he first left the club in 2012, choosing a return to England over a new contract with Inverness, he later admitted he regretted the decision. There has been no contact over an extension yet, although Tansey would like to discuss the matter during the summer.
“Hopefully in the pre-season we can sit down. I haven’t heard anything from anyone," he said. "I’m just a player – I just get thrown on the pitch and told to kick a ball around. We’ll have to see what the board want to do.
“It’s always nice to be wanted at a club and we’ll see if everything pans out.
“Everyone saw it was a bit of a circus, to be honest, at the end of January. I saw the ugly side of football and I didn’t like it.
“It’s always nice when the gaffer wants to get you signed up. He’s been great for me personally and my development as a footballer, but no one has come up to speak to me. We’ll wait and see what happens in the summer. It’s up to them.”
Tansey’s January fiasco is just one tale in what has been a frustrating season for the Caley Jags. Injuries have repeatedly been cited as the main cause of their below-par league performance, which saw them slip out of the top six for the first time in four seasons.
However, performances such as the one against Dundee United on Friday night have echoed strongly throughout the season. Too many games have been controlled and not killed off, self-inflicted defensive wounds costing goals and points that could have seen them achieve their aim of making the top half.
Bolting out of the blocks next season is imperative for Tansey, if the Caley Jags are to avoid the malaise that has caught up with them at times during this campaign.
“It’s been a frustrating season. You’ve seen us beat the top teams – we beat Aberdeen, Hearts, and went to Celtic, did well but lost 3-0. That summed our season up as well,” he said. “We need to kick on next season. We didn’t start well this year and it’s been a recipe for the rest of the season. We need to start well, get points on the board and kick on from there.
“We went nine unbeaten at the start of last season and we need to get as close to that as possible. That’s the way we want to do it.”
Friday’s defeat to already relegated United was symptomatic of how the season has gone, with all the goals preventable from a defensive perspective. Being three goals down with 55 minutes on the clock, there was simply too much left to do for Hughes’ side against a team who showed spirit and belief which belied their perilous state.
Tansey was scathing in his assessment of the display, saying it fell short of the standards that have been set at Caley Thistle and that marked improvements were needed ahead of Hamilton away tomorrow night.
“It’s not good enough at all from the standards we set. We’ve dominated the game but conceded three goals and it’s not good enough, simple as that. We need to do better in the next two games,” he said.
“We’ve had a couple of great results but it’s just not good enough to go and do this. This is not what we train for. We need to dust ourselves down and go again at Hamilton.
“It’s the story of our season. You can dominate the game and look pretty but we didn’t have that killer edge. We leave ourselves vulnerable for the counter and it’s something we definitely need to work on over the summer.”
He did add though that he would not sacrifice the team’s playing style, even if it meant getting an extra goal or point.
“The gaffer’s style is fantastic. You look at any top team and the way they play, there’s two contrasting styles: the Dortmund style, which Tottenham and Liverpool do now, then the Barcelona style, which is the way we try to play,” added Tansey. “We haven’t got a Lionel Messi in our team but you need a platform to play off.
“The gaffer has done it for two years now and it’s just been that lack of concentration that’s cost us all season.”
