THE future of Darlington's David Stockdale is unclear after manager Dave Penney refused to deny that Premier League strugglers Fulham are interested in the goalkeeper.

Barry Simmonds, Quakers' former managing director, is expected to become Fulham's next chief scout and the Londoners are thought to have had a bid accepted for the 23-year-old.

Penney refused to confirm that a bid had been accepted, but the normally tight-lipped manager did reveal that something might happen'.

Only last November Stockdale signed a contract lasting until 2009, but this season he has been part of a team that has kept a club record 23 clean sheets.

It has been remarkable rise to prominence for the former York City reserve who, at the start of the season, Penney intended to loan out to gain experience until a suspension robbed him of the services of then first-choice Andy Oakes.

Stockdale has since made the position his own, and Penney said: "There might be something happening, I'll let you know if and when it does.

"Nothing is going to happen before the end of the season with him or any of our players.

"We want to make sure the players and the club keep focused on our remaining games.

"Nobody is going to move until the summer.

"Next season we might be in a higher division and things change if you're in a higher division.

You can keep hold of your better players, you can attract better players and some players might not want to move."

Pawel Abbott is another of Darlington's key players and Penney expects the mercurial striker will be back in training today after recovering from his hamstring strain.

With the play-offs the priority, the manager has yet to decide whether to risk him against Dagenham on Saturday by which stage he may have several strikers to choose from.

He has recently been without all of his forwards bar Tommy Wright who scored the vital equaliser in Saturday's draw at Chesterfield.

Penney said: "We had to play a different formation because we didn't have the players to play a 4-4-2 like we normally do. We had to use 4-5-1 as Tommy is our only striker and he was on his last legs at the end.

"But Pawel, Guylain Ndumbu- Nsungu and Shaun Reay are all training on Monday and we're hoping to have Julian Joachim back by the end of the week.

"So all of a sudden from having only one striker we might have three or four to choose from next week.

"Pawel has now been out for four weeks. We'll give him and the others a good week's training and assess the situation. The important thing is making sure he is available for the play-offs."