Nick Montgomery delivers Hibs contract latest on Hanlon and Stevenson as he addresses new deal 'reality'
Hibs manager Nick Montgomery says no decisions have been made on new contracts at Easter Road.
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Hide AdIt was claimed this week that Paul Hanlon was a star set for a summer exit when his deal comes to a close. He has made well over 500 appearances for the club, with the future of fellow veteran and legend Lewis Stevenson brought into the spotlight.
Hanlon has played 14 league games this season while Stevenson has featured in 12. Both formed part of the 2016 Scottish Cup winning squad and will go down in Hibs history thanks to it, but Montgomery says no decisions have been made yet. David Marshall and Adam Le Fondre's deal also expire this summer.
The boss, speaking ahead of this weekend's clash in the Premiership with Aberdeen, insists there are stars who are playing for new deals. He said: "No, we haven’t made any decisions on some players who are out of contract at the end of the season.
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Hide Ad"The reality is that some players are playing for a new deal, and that’s something that we’ll probably address in the near future, but nothing’s changed since January. Those conversations will ultimately be had at some point in the next couple of months.”
Montgomery has also provided an injury update ahead of the weekend, with Hanlon on the way back from illness. There is also good news on Josh Campbell, with the midfielder out of a boot following an ankle injury.
Montgomery said: "Paul’s been training - he just went through a period in which he was up and down with illness but he’s back in training now.
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Hide Ad“Apart from Josh Campbell and Jake Doyle-Hayes, everybody else is in training. Josh is a couple of weeks away still but he’s out of his air boot and it’s looking like he’ll be back in training within a couple of weeks which is another positive.
"We expected it to be a little bit longer but it was a case of taking the boot off and getting him moving around and he seems to be progressing really quickly. He’s someone else who was starting week in, week out so it will be good to have him back at some point in the next two weeks or so.”
The news is less positive on midfielder Jake Doyle-Hayes, who is still out. Montgomery added: "It’s been a really difficult one for him, really frustrating. He’s been back in training but, yeah, just really frustrating.
“I can’t really put a timescale on when he’ll be back but we’re hoping it could be within the next month. But that’s a bit of a guess.”
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