The Neil Cox Situation?

Mystery surrounds the future of club captain Neil Cox as his contract should be up in the summer but a few weeks ago First Team coach Steve Holland suggested he still has a year to run and Cox would be seeing out.

In the summer of 2006 Neil Cox signed a two-year contract and moved on a free transfer from Cardiff City. Having not publicly signed a contract extension, naturally it would be right to think that his contract is up this summer and his future is still up in the air.

A few weeks in a go in the local press Steve Holland contradicted what we already thought though be telling superalex.co.uk that Cox still has a year to run. Holland said: "I haven't spoken to Neil about his future, but he has a year on his contract left here. That was something that was done before I was involved."

To confuse things even more Holland also said: "I don't think it will necessarily be the case he will finish playing unless it is something Neil wants to do."

So according to the clubs First Team coach Cox still has a year left on his contract and that was something that he wasn`t involved in, suggesting that an extension to Cox`s contract happened before Holland`s promotion in the summer.

So has Cox signed and extension or not, and if he did why has it slipped off the radar with the fans thinking his contract is up in the summer or have I missed something? The situation is all very confusing and has left Alex fans perplexed as to what is going on.

Is it a case of Holland has got his numbers muddled up and is wrong or has Cox in fact signed a contract extension that has gone undetected? It`s common knowledge in the area that Cox had an interview at Port Vale for a potential coaching role in October and has regularly been linked with a move back to his native Scunthorpe so it is unlikely, given the fact that he has only made 29 appearances in nearly two seasons, that he would want to sign a contract extension.

In fact it was January last year that Cox suggested he wanted to go out on loan because he had lost his first team place. As it stands it`s a rather confused situation and one the club has yet to officially clarify as we wait to find out the state of play with the club captain`s contract.