By Albatross
January 12 2005

After much speculation about possible moves, it looks like Adam Boyd is staying put. Hartlepool United have announced that the striker has put pen to paper on an extended contract at Victoria Park - although we're yet to find out exactly how long the deal will be. The news that our leading scorer has committed his future to Pools is a major plus for Neale Cooper and indeed the whole club. Although we would still have been entitled to a fee for him had he walked away at the end of the season, the values set by transfer tribunals have frequently not been close to the valuations of the selling clubs. At least now if someone does decide they want Boyd, Pools are in the driving seat in terms of the deal.

Hodcroft comments on the official site that this is a further demonstration of IOR's continuing commitment to the club, and it's hard to argue otherwise. Boyd will undoubtedly now be one of the highest earners at Pools, as is to be expected of a player that is now realistically looking like a 20 goal a season striker. In the past, someone showing the sort of form that Boyd has in the last ten months, at the age he is at, would have left Pools for higher things: Keith Houchen, Joe Allon, And Saville, Malcolm Poskett, even Jon Cullen. There's no guarantee that Boyd won't move on himself - but at least now, as with Tommy Miller, we should be able to command a hefty transfer fee and get something like what he is worth.

The challenge now ahead for Boyd is to keep his form going and not sit back now he has a new deal in his pocket. Looking on the positive side, if he has ambitions to play at a higher level (as he surely does) then he needs to keep on scoring to prove to any interested clubs that he's worth the money that they would have to part with. Maintaining his current strike rate is sure to be a challenge: since he returned to the side in March, he has scored 23 goals in just 39 appearances.