NEAL ARDLEY explained the decision behind Ryan Whitley’s departure from York City, and praised the shot-stopper for his role in the move.

Whitley left York by mutual consent on Tuesday afternoon, before re-joining former side Scarborough Athletic on a permanent transfer.

The arrival of George Sykes-Kenworthy left Ardley with five first-team goalkeepers at the club, seeing Whitley ask the City boss where his future lies.

“I made the judgement call that I felt, I did all of my homework on George Sykes-Kenworthy and we felt he would be a really good signing going forward,” Ardley explained.

“You’ve then all of a sudden got five goalies, David Stockdale is back training with the squad now and is doing well, I put Rory in ahead of Ryan over the last few weeks.

“There comes a point where the player rightly so comes and knocks on your door, and asks where he is in your plans.

“You have honest conversations, if I feel like somebody is better off going and getting game time somewhere else, then we’ll have that conversation.

“It isn’t any one player being made a scapegoat, it’s an evolution of trying to improve the squad.

“Sometimes there are players that will look and say that they want to play, and fair play to Ryan, we wanted to help him do that and get it into motion.

“Other times you get players where you bring offers to them and ask if they want to play, and they say they don’t want to, they’d rather not play and take the money.

“I’ve had all of the experiences in my time, but fair play to Ryan, he wanted to play and we’ve helped to facilitate that.

“We’ve still got four goalies on our books, and Ryan gets to go and play so it works for all parties.”