Boss Roy Keane says the club are unlikely to offer new deals to this summer’s out of contract players until after the season is over. David Wright, Richard Wright and Shane O’Connor (pictured) are amongst those whose terms are up at the end of June.
Speaking prior to the game at Swansea, Keane said all thoughts are currently centred on picking up points: "I’ll be speaking to nobody about contracts in the next few weeks, the only thing we’re focused on is winning football matches. The contract situation will take care of itself.
"If we have to wait until after the last game we’ll do that. If we need to do it before that, in terms of respect for some of the players, we’ll look at it, but I don’t think any decisions will be made until after the last kick of the season.”
In addition to the two Wrights and O’Connor, Pim Balkestein, Ed Upson, Jack Ainsley, Liam Trotter, Reggie Lambe, Troy Brown, Devann Yao and Ian McLoughlin all have deals which are up this summer.
Town will also have to weigh up whether to offer permanent deals to loanees Daryl Murphy, Liam Rosenior and David Healy. Sunderland will almost certainly want Jack Colback to be part of their first team squad next season.
Keane says he will aim to trim the size of his squad ahead of 2010/11: "I think every manager will take stock of the situation in the summer, whether it’s the players out on loan when they come back or the two or three important players for us whose contracts are up. At every club there’s always an element of that.
"I think we’ve got plenty of players on our books. If you look at the players out on loan, two or three of them have at least one or two years on their contracts. It’s not about adding more players to our squad, although we might add one or two, it’s about tightening things up.
"We could possibly have a smaller squad, we probably have too many players at the moment, but we’ve got to make sure that they are the right players.”
Coaches Steve Foley and Ian McParland as well as Bryan Klug, who is still on gardening leave, are also amongst those out of contract at the end of the season.