Carlisle Utd director of football on Olufela Olomola future, January window plans and contract talks

The five-goal forward has impressed since making the season-long loan move to Brunton Park.

But a new-year recall clause in the deal has raised fears that Scunthorpe, who are four points and two places below 20th-placed Carlisle in League Two, could cut short his Blues spell.

United lost three key loan players last January and were unable to sustain a promotion challenge as a result.

Director of football Holdsworth says such clauses are “normal” in season-long loans but said Carlisle will make it clear that they want the 22-year-old to see out the full term of his deal in Cumbria.

“With Fela, we have a very good relationship with him and I really like him as a person,” Holdsworth said.

“He’s committed himself here and he’s enjoying himself. We’ve had some good discussions with the boy and he’s impressed us, so why wouldn’t we want to keep that on?

“We do want to keep that on, of course, because he’s playing regularly and he has a great attitude.

“What sometimes people don’t realise is that in any year-long loan there is always a recall. There’s no blaming people for that if somebody takes him back.

“He’s come here for a reason and that’s because he wasn’t wanted by his parent club. We’ve shown him that our set-up is right, he’s settled and he’s scoring goals. But when it comes to the recall, we’re no different to anybody else.

“We want him to stay and I’ll ask him to stay.

“He has another year after this one with Scunthorpe, so if you’re them, or any club for that matter, and you have a boy on a three-year contract and on a certain amount of wages, and then you don’t want him, does that hurt the club?

“Financially, of course it does. In their opinion, and this is the same for every player who goes out, you’re looking to recoup some of your wages.

“Putting a boy on a three-year contract and then halfway deciding you don’t want him is very, very expensive. We’re helping them out and he’s helping us out so, right now, it’s all healthy with him., and we do want him to stay.”

Asked if there was anything United could do to boost their chances should Scunthorpe feel it beneficial to recall Olomola, Holdsworth said: “It’s not for me to comment on any club’s financial position, so we’ll see.”

Holdsworth, meanwhile, said Carlisle will back the manager in the January window but said United’s business will also be influenced by the fate of certain existing members of their squad.

He said: “January is a tough window but we’ll support the manager. We might have a case where loan players go back to their clubs.

“Right now I’ve got an idea of where we’ll be, but that might change. It might change because of success, and let’s hope it’s a positive and the team turn a corner at Plymouth before a good home game against another struggling side in Northampton.

“We’ve got to go down to Plymouth [on Saturday] and show character which I think is what our supporters want to see. Players have to show accountability and responsibility. We can all talk about football, but it comes down to what happens on the pitch and Steven has got a responsibility to go and show what they’re about.”

Decisions on players on the permanent books will also be weighed up as the season goes on, Holdsworth said.

He said United want to avoid a repeat of last summer which saw a huge turnover of players.

But he said any contract extensions will have to be earned.

Holdsworth said: “At the moment every week on a Monday we reflect on certain players, and I could keep every one of those players right now.

“When people say we’ve only given them one-year deals, that was done respectfully, because when you’re bringing in a whole new squad…I won’t say it’s inevitable, but not all of those are going to go as well as you want them to.

“Again, to reassure people, we can extend all of those contracts, and I will do based on facts.

“If we’ve got a player, or a squad, that’s under-performing and can’t cut the mustard in League Two – why would you keep them? Players will have to earn their contracts. If they want an extension I’ll give it to them, but go out there and give me performances that tell me that I’d be stupid not to.

“At present there are a number of players who are not performing as well as they could and they’re in a position where they have got to improve.

“The basic point is, why would I keep a whole squad that struggles? That would be madness.

“There are definitely three or four of them right now who I could extend today because they’re tied up anyway. There are one or two where I think, yeah, they’ve got improvement in them and they’ll get better for having 30 games under their belt.

“When I decide to do that it will be based completely on facts. I can talk to those players when the time is right.

“We’re in October and the team isn’t performing as well as we want it to or as we expected it to. That means I’m not in a position to be concerned, but I am already looking at where I would extend some of those contracts.

“I don’t want a summer like the one I had this year, I really don’t. It was long, demanding and we had hundreds of players offered to the manager. We talked about many aspects of what type of team Steven wanted to put out, given the blueprint of what he wanted to do and how he wanted his team to perform.

“He took a very patient approach. At times patience isn’t always the best policy because you can miss out, as we found out, so that was a concern. That was raised and Steven was adamant about the way he wanted to recruit and we supported him on it.

“In terms of the contract extensions, they’ll come down to ability and to accountability on the pitch. As I said before, off the pitch we’re in a very good place. It’s now down to performance.

“If you’ve got a [Stefan] Scougall in your team, a [Jack] Bridge in your team, a Fela [Olomola] in your team and a [Mo] Sagaf in your team, there’s positivity there. If you can get the best out of [Nathan] Thomas and more out of [Harry] McKirdy, and there should be more to come from both of those, then all of a sudden we’ve got ourselves an attacking side.

“If you’ve then got the likes of [Ryan] Loft and [Elias] Sorensen, and they start to perform, it means you’ve got options.

“I want continuation, and I want that for next season, but the players have to perform. It’s going very well off the pitch but the manager’s job is to get the results, and from that the players will be performing so that they get those contract offers.”

Holdsworth denied that uncertainty about their futures, given their limited contract lengths, could be a reason for below-par performances.

“Don’t tell me a player is thinking about the fact he’s out of contract in eight months’ time – there’s a million of those. I don’t believe that one bit,” he said.

“They’ll get their contract, but they have to go and perform first. They’re not going to get one flippantly and I’m just going to waste money. That’s not going to happen. No chance.

“Give me regular performances of consistency and it’ll make my job easy, and it’ll make their life easier as well. There’s just no way we’ll put extensions for players when they’re not performing. Why would we?”

Asked about the possibility of another big turnover of players next year, Holdsworth said: “Performances might mean that happens again. We have to look at the case of better players or different money which is the reason most players move for.

“If a player isn’t earning it, and this can sometimes be something supporters don’t get, we had 18 players out of contract in the summer. Some of those players wanted to double their wages, some of them wanted a 40 per cent increase, based on what?

“Some of them wanted the same ridiculous bonus scheme as we had last year that was crippling the club and making our life extremely difficult. When I arrived there was half the team on a bonus scheme that was hurtful given the circumstances of the non-performance.

“Half of them were on a more realistic bonus scheme based on success. We brought that in for success, and if you don’t get success but you’ve got a ridiculous bonus scheme, the only place it hurts is the finance, and it did.

“Those players were offered a change of the bonus scheme to go onto a more realistic scheme, and not one of them wanted to change. That was tough, it was tough for [former manager] John Sheridan who didn’t like the situation, but there was nothing we could do unless the players wanted to change it.

“Call them mercenaries, call them what you like, but they were given it. I couldn’t change it, and it meant we had players who were still taking those bonuses which was hurting our dressing room.

“The chairman [Andrew Jenkins] and the board have always supported managers, the chairman is a top guy who will support managers through thick and thin.

“The decisions we make are now based on facts and performances, and right now our bonus scheme isn’t really being used, to be honest. The boys will be wanting bonuses, but they’ve got to go and earn them.

“I know we’ve got a structure there now which means if the players aren’t performing, I’m not throwing out money.”