By Albatross
October 25 2004

Hartlepool United's official site has finally told us what we already knew: that Mickey Nelson has handed in a written transfer request. How they will handle it is still open for debate, but my guess is Nelson may not be at Victoria Park too much longer... While there is now an official statement, what it actually tells us directly is minimal - basically that Nelson has indeed handed in a written transfer request, which was what his agent had already told the Hartlepool Mail. There's going to be a heck of a lot of people trying to read between the lines, and the main thing that most will drag out from it is that it states clearly that Nelson has a significant length of time left on his current contract - the implication being that the club see no particular reason to negotiate a new one.

One scenario posed over the weekend may explain some of the issues - although we may never find out the full story. The scenario is that, with the negotiations to bring Nelson to Pools having continued for a significant length of time, the verbal offer of an improved contract down the line was made by Mike Newell; with the change of manager, this has therefore been lost. It has to be said that there is no evidence to support that theory (or indeed that there ever was a "verbal assurance"), and it would take an error of huge proportions for his agent to simply assume that the offer still stood despite a change of manager. Mind you, given that the agent seems to have been willing to take a verbal assurance rather than a written guarantee of his client's contract being reviewed doesn't exactly say much - twenty minutes to decide or not.

For all his protestations that he is not the bad guy here, Nelson's agent Clive Hart is not exactly doing himself or his client any favours here. Three months to set the deal up - but then only twenty minutes to agree to a contract? And his admission that he represents managers as well as players (he's quoted as saying that he represents Peter Taylor and Paul Sturrock as well as other League 1 players) doesn't exactly fill some with confidence either - surely there's a huge conflict of interest there. Meanwhile, Nelson's performances this season have been suffering and he is a long way from having universal backing on his side of the argument - more seem to be saying that we'd be best off selling him for whatever we can get. You doubt that Pools would be prepared to let him go for nothing, and with money still pretty tight at most clubs finding someone to take a punt on an out-of-form defender may tax even Mr. Hart's apparently considerably persuasive powers.

The next move will be whether Pools will accept the offer - and whether any approaches are made. My personal view is that the request will be accepted, and that especially if Clark plays well against Port Vale Nelson will be left to cool his heels on the bench or in the reserves. He's clearly unhappy and struggling for form - but equally clearly Pools have no intention of bowing to pressure and negotiating a deal. After all, if Nelson can get a new contract after one year of a three year deal, a number of other players will be beating a path to Hodcroft's door - a situation that the club is clearly not going to allow.