AFTER Burton Albion’s retained list was released on Monday George Taft and Kelvin Maynard were offered the chance to come back and impress manager Nigel Clough during pre-season
Both players have been out for the entire 2015/16 campaign with knee injuries.
Clough said: “George Taft and Kelvin Maynard have an invitation to come back during pre-season.
“If they can get themselves fixed up then they can feel free to do that but we haven’t seen them play so the invitation is there just to come back in the first few weeks of pre-season and see where we go from there.”
Six players were released on Monday whilst three players were offered new deals. Nigel Clough has already begun his search for players that will help Burton Albion survive in the Championship next season.
“We’ve been looking for the last few months, we drew two lists up, one for League One and one for the Championship so we’re very much at the talking stage now where we’re contacting agents and clubs so hopefully we’ll move on to the next stage in the next week or so where we meet the players and try to pursued them to come.
“There were some players on both lists but once you are in the Championship you can attract the next level of players but when you are looking for that quality of Championship players, we’re probably not at the top of anybody’s list.”
The Brewers are 6/4 to face the drop next season after earning back-to-back promotions. The Albion boss thinks the fear of relegation could deter players away but is up for the challenge of persuading new faces.
Clough said: “I think we’re already favourites for relegation so I think we’re going to have it all on persuading players to come, the right players as well.
“We’re not interested in players who are worried about what the next tattoo is going to be or what car they are going to get next or if their hair is nicely gelled.
“We want players who really want to come and battle for the club because it’s going to be backs against the walls stuff next season so we want the right characters coming in.”