Airdrie have scrapped their reserve team – and don’t know when or if they will reinstate it.
The move comes as the Lanarkshire club announced that 17 players had been released at the end of their contracts, and director of football Stuart Millar said they will operate with a skeleton squad for next season.
Millar says the Diamonds have no choice, financially, but to do away with the second string for the coming season, and says restrictions are also playing a huge role.
“We’ll be working with a smaller squad, so from that point of view not every player that goes will be replaced,” he said.
“We’re working on a skeleton squad and we don’t plan to have a reserve team next season, so there were a number of young boys let go, as well as a number of first-team squad players.
“Short-term I think we’ve got to look at it and if the first-team aren’t playing until the middle of October then it’s impossible, with testing and all the restrictions, to have a reserve team.
“How long that may last, I’m not sure, but when you look at the top Premiership teams in the country not having a reserve set-up, it’s no great surprise, both financially and with the restrictions in place.
“Financially and tactically you have to clear the decks a wee bit and that’s all that we’ve done. We’re clearing the decks for new arrivals, but it won’t be an inflated squad.”
Similarly, Millar says the club won’t be entirely full-time next season as he looks to bring players in. Anybody who is signed needs to be of a standard that will have the side challenging for the League 1 title, though.
He said: “We have to balance it off. There are a number of full-time players, there are a number of part-time players.
“We continue to use the hybrid system, and will there be fewer full-time than part-time, we don’t really know yet.
“We’re always looking for players, there are hundreds out there, but we’re all chasing similar guys. The idea is to find one that nobody else has found yet, and we’ve been very successful in doing that for the last season or so.
“We need to make sure they have the right experience, we can’t afford to have any passengers, hence the reason why we can’t have an inflated squad.
“All of our players just need to have the ability, regardless of what level they’ve come from, and they need to be able to play at the top end of League 1, and with the aim of getting promotion.”
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