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This is the seventh and final part of my interview with Scott Duxbury. There’s quite a lot in this, including the latest on Rob Green’s and Matthew Upson’s contract situation, the progress of our injured players, the latest on the Olympic Stadium and the possibility of moving to the Olympic Stadium post 2012, and much more besides.
Anyway, it seems from the comments that you have mostly enjoyed the interview, so I will have to think who to try to talk to next.
ID: Matthew Upson and Robert Green, are their contract situations anywhere near being sorted out?
SD: We have been in dialogue with Rob Green’s agent for many months with regard to a new contract. Those discussions have stopped because Rob has a certain expectation of what he wants from a contract, which I fully respect. We are trying to get as close to his expectations as we can but obviously we have our principles and our structures. The conversation will start again.
When does the contract run out?
He’s got three more years so it’s not pressing. We are certainly not going to lose Rob Green. When we can, discussions will start again and I am sure we’ll find a conclusion.
It would be unthinkable to lose Rob Green, wouldn’t it? In most people’s opinion he is the top keeper in the country.
Yes, and we have no desire to lose Rob Green and we won’t. As long as every players wants to be at this football club, we want them. He has given no indication he wants to go and we certainly don’t want to lose him. Matthew Upson is slightly different. He’s got two years left to run. We have made contact with his agent and we will try to start to discuss a new contract as soon as we can. Again, we don’t want to lose Matthew.
But he’s 30 now. If Manchester City bid £17 million for him, you’re not going to turn it down, are you?
We don’t want to lose him, but again, it is down to each individual player as to whether they want to be part of what we are trying to do. I am not purposely trying to be evasive and I am trying to be as honest as I can. If a player wants to be part us they’ll stay, and we want Matthew to stay. It’s really down to Matthew as to what he sees… I don’t know what his aspirations are. There has been lots of talk that he must have European football etc but I have not had an opportunity to sit down with Matthew but I know Gianfranco wants him to stay, we want him to stay so if he wants to be with us he will be with us when the season starts.
The partnership between Upson and Tomkins has been amazing. Tomkins was our top player in the last quarter of the season, I think. He could be the next home grown star of the future.
Absolutely. What Tomkins has done has been superb. There are lots of considerations. I hope Matthew signs a new contract. I hope he wants to be with us. But it’s a conversation between Gianfranco and Matthew. It’s down to those two.
Let’s talk about some of the injured players. Is Kieron Dyer really back to full fitness?
Yes, he’s fit and I think the pre season will do him good. It will be the first pre season he has had with the club where he’s actually been fit. He’s back to fitness, scheduled to do a full pre season.
What about Danny Gabbidon? He was a cracking player for us, for a time.
He’s fit. The medical department have done an amazing job on him. I think he had four separate injuries and systematically they have cured them, one by one. So he’s fit. If he comes through the pre season unscathed, that’s another centre back that we’ve got.
What about Behrami? Last time we spoke you were eulogizing about his attitude to recovery. You said he was in before anyone else and left the training ground after everyone else as he was so keen to get back to fitness. How’s he progressing? Will he bit fit for the start of the season?
He could play now! He’s an absolute animal. He has the attitude that if his leg is hanging off it’s only a scratch! He’ll be fine. I think he will miss the first game of the season but after that he will be in full training. I have got no concerns over Behami.
When he made his debut I thought he was a weird player – headless chicken and all over the place. But after three or four games you could see what he was going to become. He’s one of the players that each week you get a bid from an Italian club for. They keep increasing the bids but we say no, no no. The only positive thing about his injury this summer is that hopefully there will be no bids. He is a huge, huge player.
And Scott Parker? He seems to be quite injury prone. Is he going to be OK for the start of the season too?
Yes, he’s fine too. There was an element of precaution at the end of the season. He’s another one who will benefit from a full pre season. He’s a player that Gianfranco really, really rates and wants him to be part of his plans having fought so hard to keep him after the bid from Manchester City and with the banks. He is someone who is key for Gianfranco.
Kovac. Has he gone for good?
Kovac is a funny one. We have an option to sign him and Gianfranco is assessing the situation as to whether we will be exercising that. We have a lot of midfielders and we have certain targets, so depending on how the transfer window pans out, we’ll make a decision on that. He has not ruled it out.
Were people disappointed that Freddie Sears didn’t really make a breakthrough last year?
Gianfranco has got high hopes for him. He has done a lot of one on one coaching with him, but he feels he will now benefit from a full season of competitive football, which is why he has been put out on loan. He is certainly someone who Gianfranco believes will have a future at the club. Absolutely. He says he sees a lot of himself in him, which I hope is right. That would be good!
Someone was telling me that you are planning a penalty shootout between Zola and Maradona at the Napoli game. Is that right?
That was my idea but it has proved difficult to secure Maradona. Zola’s up for it.
It would guarantee a full house.
My idea was to get Diego down and reunite the two of them. I have not given up. I met Diego’s agent. He says he is a very unpredictable individual and you have got no guarantee he will turn up. I am working on it but my hopes are fading fast.
Maybe you could get Ray Stewart as a stand in! Moving on to another subject, presumably any ground redevelopment is on hold.
No, no. We’ve got to be sensible about this. The most important thing is to invest in the first team and the new training ground. The new training ground is key to everything we are trying to achieve. We are exercising the option today or tomorrow to purchase the new training ground and then we will start the redevelopment phase 1. I have also put planning permission in for the East Stand to redevelop that. So the plans is invest in the training ground, invest in the first team, get regular Europa League football, then post 2012 we can assess the situation with regard to the viability of the Olympic Stadium. If that is not a goer we can redevelop the East Stand. Me, personally, I would sooner stay at the stadium. If we can redevelop and stay with all the history and the heritage, improve the transport infrastructure with the tube station, that would be better than moving to a new stadium. That’s just my personal view.
But you wouldn’t look at developing the East Stand before 2012?
No. It would be remiss not to examine the possible opportunities that 2012 may bring. They have made it clear there won’t be a football legacy and that it has to be an athletics legacy, but I think it would be remiss not to look and see if there are any opportunities that present themselves, and in the meantime invest in the training ground and the team and get Europa League football. If we invested in the East Stand now and there turned out to be opportunities post 2012 it would be a wrong decision.
Finally, are you going to keep Jeremy Nicholas [the match day announcer] next season?
[laughs]. Listen, I have meddled around with Jeremy Nicholas, I’ve meddled around with moving ‘Bubbles’. I was criticized for it, and I now understand there are certain things you just cannot touch! They have to remain! Forever!
THE END
If we are to progress the mindset needs to change among the fans a bit. We need to look at players and guage if we think they could play for a top four team. Upson and Tomkins I would say yes, Gabiddon and Collins top ten only but that makes them good understudy’s. Let’s hope we see the emergence of Jordan Spence this year too, another great centre back prospect. I would like to see him have a this season as an understudy as you outlined for Tomkins. I think it is a no brainer that the starting pair is Tomkins and Upson with Gabs and Collins as back up and Spence pushing those two.
Thanks Iain, very interesting to know a bit from the inside.Off the subject i heard Wigan`s Arm Zaki is not wanted,he aint got good reputation but he`s good ,i think we should track him.The spuds were after him one time.COYI !!!!!.
great interview! seems to me that duxbury is carrying the can with some fans for the tevez thing, but he was a smallish cog in a machine that whatever we think, DID keep us up. be realistic,Tevez kept us up. not just at manure, but in the run in it was as if between him and noble he embarressed the team to fight. i have spent my life watching the crown jewels of this club being sold, starting with Peters to the yids. but if there is any player who is not commited to the shirt get shot. upson? he is only going to man city, and he will end up the same as the greedy taffy with splinters on his greedy backside when the superstar badge kissers get signed. can you see anyone out of the top 4 spending serious dough on him?
Funny how nobody seems to have put Duxbury on the spot over the Tevez saga. A ‘smallish cog’ thechief my ar$e!
By my calculations Tevez cost us about £3m in wages, £5.5m in fines, £15-25m in compo to the Sheffield whingers, £5m (approx) to Kia J and a job as a ‘consultant’, millions in legal costs and ten ton of grief in the press. That’s around 30-40 million quid for someone who played 20 games for us.
Tevez didn’t keep us up, indeed the arrival of him and Mish Mash derailed our entire season from the off.
I don’t really care what SD does now, I want him asked about his key role in this shambles. Everything else is window dressing.
I thought that Iain and our friends at KUMB being hardened journos would have had the bottle to pull Duxbury up. Apparently not…
doc you must be tripping. the arrival of tevez and mascerano would have graced any team. the season was derailed by roeders talentless twin who felt that harewood and mullens were more worthy of a first team place. look at where the four of them are now. 40 million? well they say it costs 100 million plus to lose your place at the top table, so tevez still seems good business to me. as for duxbury, i didnt say i was a fan, but i am still prepared to wait and see. remember Brown? it could be worse.
thechief –
yep I agree with a lot of what you say, but the arrival of the 2 didn’t grace us because they were i)not match fit; ii)’parked’with us to be transfered elsewhere asap and iii) not played. All in all their arrival proved to be disasterous in what promised to be a good season.
Anyway, the point I was trying to make was that Duxbury had to be quizzed about this and his central role in us being sued to high heaven. The fact he wasn’t even asked about it speaks volumes – he must have insisted on it as a precondition to the interview.