Ferguson delight as Stewart signs deal

The defender, a product of the Showgrounds club’s Youth Academy, will put pen to paper this week on a new two-year deal.

“Aaron is a quality player just as his father (Alfie) was and he has a great head on his shoulders for such a young lad,” Ferguson told Times Sport.

“I still can’t get my head around the fact that he’s as young as he is.

“I remember playing against him myself so he must have been about 16 when he made his debut!

“He has great experience already in this league and he can only get better – he has another eight years ahead of him at least at this level,” added Ferguson, who continues to monitor the situations of players whose contracts expire at the end of the season.

“I had another chat with Dwayne Nelson during the week so he has gone away to think about it again. Hopefully that one will be a bit closer but time will tell.

“In general terms, I need to weigh up the budget restraints and see what we have and see if there are areas that we identify that we have to strengthen.

“There could be hard decisions of maybe having to tell people that they won’t be in our plans for next year but if we need to free up money to do that, then it has to be done.”

United’s final game before the Danske Bank Premiership ‘split’ comes this Saturday when they travel to a Cliftonville side who are within touching distance of the championship.

“They could be very close to winning the title by this weekend so there should be a good crowd, a good atmosphere.

“Hopefully we can go there and dampen the party a bit,” added Ferguson, who will be without skipper Allan Jenkins, banned for one game after accumulating five bookings.

* Seven Towers Supporters’ Club transport for Saturday’s game leaves Henry Street car park at 2pm.