Exeter City News

Matt Taylor Releases Retained list

Hants

No real surprises as Matt Taylor completes his first season and starts to build a new squad.

Out go

  • James Hamon
  • Luke Croll
  • Jimmy Oates
  • Felix Norman
  • Max Smallcombe

Players retained

  • Pierce Sweeney
  • Craig Woodman
  • Aaron Martin
  • Jordan Tillson
  • Lee Martin
  • Nicky Law
  • Lee Holmes
  • Randell Williams
  • Ryan Bowman
  • Jonathan Forte
  • Matt Jay
  • Dean Moxey
  • Jake Taylor
  • Joel Randall
  • Archie Collins
  • Harry Kite
  • Josh Key
  • Jack Sparkes
  • Alex Hartridge
  • Ben Seymour
  • James Dodd
  • Jordan Dyer
  • Will Dean

New contracts have been offered to:-

  • Troy Brown
  • Christy Pym
  • Hiram Boateng

Discussing Luke Croll, manager Matt Taylor said

Since Luke came to the club it has been a real shame because he is a talented player, but his body has just let him down, to be honest with you.

He had a spell – 10 games into the season – where he went on a run of six to eight games where he performed pretty well but then injury curtailed the remainder of his season.

That has been the story of Luke, I am afraid. I fully expect Luke (Croll) to have a career in professional football but he has got to get his body in a position to allow him to do that and his mind will play a part in that as well.

On James Hamon, Matt said:-

In the last few years he has been understudy to Christy Pym and we just felt that his performances when he has stepped in this season, and also his performances for the under-23s, have not been up to the level that we need from the No. 2 goalkeeper.

It is, probably, best that James moves on and finds a career elsewhere in the game and we wish him all the best.

He is a great character and the lads and the staff will really miss him but it is the right thing to do for the club.

Matt Taylor also expects Christy Pym and Exeweb sponsored Hiram Boateng to depart as they have not signed a contract. Matt pointed out that Christy has played for 166 first team appearances. On the likely departure f the two Taylor said:-

I have got to be realistic in terms of Christy and Hiram who we have offered contracts to. Christy has been a fantastic servant to this football club, he really has, and I fully expect him to go on to bigger and better things.

Unfortunately, I was given the task of having the likes of Christy and Hiram coming into the last year of their contracts. The first job I did was to try and get them tied down but when a player goes into the last year of their contract they hold all the cards, plus they have been, not undervalued, but they don’t feel they were fully valued earlier on.

So, Christy goes with my best wishes, if he does go, and I want the fans and everyone associated with the club to be really respectful of Christy. He has done everything he possibly can and performed so well in recent seasons.

He has probably played the most amount of games for a keeper of that age at any level, which is fantastic and testament to him and because of that he will probably go on to bigger and better things than ourselves.



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