East Kilbride Thistle boss hopes for fresh start in 2023 as Barry Russell becomes TWENTY-FOURTH player to quit club this term

dailyrecord.co.uk:

East Kilbride Thistle boss Aaron Connolly hopes the new year heralds a fresh start for the club after a “chaotic” few months which has seen a whopping TWENTY-FOUR players leave the club.Defender Barry Russell became the latest player to quit the Showpark earlier this month to round off a hellish few months.Player-boss Connolly took the reins after Garry O’Hanlon was sacked in September and has tried to steady the ship as the likes of big summer signings Jamie Longworth, Sean Winter, David Sinclair and, in the last few weeks, Russell, were among those to quit the club for various reasons.The Jags have been sidelined for the past couple of weeks but that has allowed Connolly to take stock and analyse the season so far, which has Thistle sitting in a solid mid-table position in the West of Scotland Third Division.Hopes were high at the start of the season for a title push but this campaign has now become about holding things together, with Connolly forced to turn to the club’s youth players to get a team on the park.And as he prepares to play the club’s final game of the year on Hogmanay at home to BSC Glasgow B in the West of Scotland Cup, Connolly said:”We have been out of it for a couple of weeks so we are hoping to get a midweek game before Hogmanay.“The break isn’t ideal in terms of match fitness and match sharpness, but it has given us time to allow the squad to continue to settle.“Myself and the staff stat down and had an in-depth look at things and, since the start of the season, we’ve found that 24 players have left the club and we have had to recruit quite heavily from the younger age groups.“Over the 19 games we’ve played, we’ve used 44 players so it just shows what we have had to deal with.“That level of