Manager expects player to leave as Millwall, Blackpool and Hibernian eye transfer | OneFootball

Both Jordan Thomas and Ethon Archer are expected to depart Cheltenham Town this summer with the former linked with Blackpool, Millwall & Hibernian.

As they seek to finish the season with a bit of a flourish, Cheltenham Town have taken seven points from their last three matches to show signs of what they could build on for next season.

The Robins, following their relegation down to League Two last season, sit ten points behind the top seven and the play-off places in the fourth-tier and 16 points clear of the bottom two and the relegation places to cement themselves as firmly middle of the road.

Whilst perhaps a disappointing campaign on the face of it for a just-relegated League Two side, the Gloucestershire-based outfit did endure several key first-team departures last summer so something of a rebuilding season was always to be expected.

It will therefore be quite frustrating that at least two of their standout players from this season will not continue as part of the rebuild with former Newport County boss Michael Flynn saying he ‘expects’ the departures of both Ethon Archer and Jordan Thomas soon.

The blow of losing Archer & Thomas

In the aftermath of their 2-1 victory over promotion chasing Notts County at Meadow Lane on Easter Monday, in a game in which Jordan Thomas scored a 75th minute equaliser before Ethon Archer’s 89th minute winner, Michael Flynn was quizzed over the future of the pair and, when asked how long he thinks they could stay for, bluntly said ‘probably for about another two weeks’.

23-year-old winger Thomas joined the in the winter transfer window of 2024 and failed to score in 14 League One appearances as they were relegated from the third-tier but he has benefitted from the drop in a level to assert himself as a key man for Cheltenham this season.

22-year-old Archer moved to Cheltenham a few months after Thomas last summer, having also spent his entire career in non-league and then earning himself an EFL move after a stint with Torquay United.

Only former Middlesbrough striker George Miller and former loanee Joel Colwill, who spent the first-half of the campaign at Cheltenham before being moved to Exeter City in League One, have scored more goals for the Robins this season than Thomas, whilst Archer remains a goal behind the former Bath man after his winning strike on Monday.

When asked about how much longer they can keep the pair for, Flynn was fairly frank in his response: "Probably for about two weeks. I don't think we'll keep either of them, to be honest. I would probably say Jordan will go first."

With Flynn seemingly resigned to their respective departures, that is a major hole to fill in attack as they seek to sustain more of a challenge for promotion in the 2025/26 campaign.

Cheltenham’s rebuild

Thomas joined Cheltenham on a two-and-a-half-year deal when he arrived in February 2024 so he still has a year left on his contract but even with that, Flynn expects him to depart and has said he expects him to be the first one of the pair to go.

He has been linked with Championship sides Millwall and Blackpool in the last month or so as well as with Scottish Premiership giant Hibernian.

Archer, on the other hand, signed a new deal with the club last month, extending his contract by a further year to the summer of 2027 and that has put Cheltenham in a stronger position to keep him but it is more likely simply a stronger position to get a better fee for him with the expectation, as outlined, still that he departs.

Cheltenham have five loanees departing at the end of this season and, as well as that, there are six players with first-team contracts that are expiring this summer so, with those two expected sales, it could be another fairly big and active summer for Flynn’s squad.

14 players left the club at the end of their respective contracts last season as well as a few key sales, such as Lewis Freestone and Rob Street, so there is a precedent to suggest they can cope and deal with their current situation but the frustration remains that it does, at least to a lesser degree, appear to be another summer of rebuilding the squad as they seek a return to League One.