The need for first-team football prompted Jordon Brown’s departure from Cove Rangers.
Brown had been an unused substitute in all nine league games so far this season, with his two starts coming in the Betfred Cup, and he was released on Monday evening.
Manager Paul Hartley said there was no issue with Brown but he could not guarantee him game-time at the League Two champions.
Former Aberdeen youngster Brown joined Cove in 2018 from neighbours Peterhead and helped the club achieve promotion to the SPFL last year. However, he only managed nine appearances – all from the bench – in their title-winning campaign.
Hartley said: “He wants to go play first-team football and I can see that. He’s not played a lot of football and I respect his decision to go seek first-team football.
“Jordon’s not been a problem for us, he’s trained well but unfortunately we couldn’t guarantee him first-team football.”
No problem mate, pleasure 👍🏻 https://t.co/rR9E5Z4LfC
— Jordon Brown (@JordonBrown28) December 3, 2020
It reduces the size of the Cove first-team squad to 18, with defender Tom Leighton due to return from his loan at Lowland League side East Kilbride in January.
Hartley hopes there is scope to increase that when the January window opens in 10 days’ time.
He added: “We probably only need to add one or two if we could. We’ve not got the biggest squad and I didn’t want it like that anyway.
“But it frees up a space or two if we can maybe get them in. But it’s not going to be easy at this moment in time.”