Dundee United boss Ray McKinnon intends to have a clear idea by the end of the week of who among his current squad will be leaving and who’ll be staying.
And it’s increasingly likely the number of departures will be considerable.
Ray has offered Stewart Murdoch and Blair Spittal the chance to stay on at Tannadice for next term and held talks with club captain Sean Dillon over his situation.
Over the next day or so he’ll also be meeting Willo Flood and Charlie Telfer to discuss their futures.
That means by the weekend he hopes to know who is going and who’ll be part of the push for promotion in 2017/18.
And it could well be that, of those on that list, only Murdoch is in the squad come the start of next season.
He is now on holiday but United are confident he will accept the terms they’ve put on the table.
Spittal, though, has been attracting interest from Partick Thistle and Motherwell, among others, and looks likely to try his luck elsewhere.
Dillon will take time to consider his next move and it’s not been confirmed yet whether or not Flood and Telfer are being offered new deals.
The club today announced the departures of Luis Zwick and youngster Jordan Gardner as well as Tony Andreu, Alex Nicholls and Thomas Mikkelsen back to their parent clubs following their loan spells.
“We are speaking to players throughout the week and there should be news on that coming,” said Ray.
“I do want as much as possible sorted by the weekend and what I can say is we have offered Stewart Murdoch a contract.
“Murdo has done well since switching to right-back — I see him as having a future there and so does he. He’s big and strong and with his pace not many people get past him.”
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