Boss Roy Keane says the summer will be just as much about keeping his core group of players at the club as adding his four or five targets to his squad. The Town manager cites skipper Jon Walters and boy wonder striker Connor Wickham as amongst those who he wouldn’t countenance selling during the close season.
Keane said: "We talk about my intentions to bring players into the club, my intention is also to keep our best players because there’ll be interest in not just Connor, but other players as well.
"I’ve already had enquiries for some of my players who I’ve no intention of letting go. I don’t want to be bringing players in and letting one or two go and thinking, we’re taking one step forward and two back.
"We’ve got a core group of players we have no intention of letting go, my captain being one of them.”
The Blues boss says that for all the season’s woes, there have been positives: "There have been pluses, people like Shane O’Connor coming into the team and the biggest plus will be Connor, as we saw again last week.
"I think Jon Walters has been amazing this year, his captaincy has been excellent and he’s been a joy to work with - his leadership skills in the dressing room when we were under the cosh and last weekend, aside from his goal, he was outstanding.
"There will be plenty of clubs — there are already — who would be keen to take Jon Walters.
”I’m not going to kid myself that I’ll just be bringing players in, I’m going to have hard work keeping some of our players.”
Keane was tightlipped regarding any offers for young star Wickham: "I’m not going to discuss it. Take from that what you want!
"I know if I was a manager in the Premier League with one of the big teams what kind of players I’d be looking at and that would be young, talented players.
"We’ve seen Theo Walcott go for big money, Gareth Bale as well, and these boys had played only 15 or 20 games. I think there are managers out there looking for young, hungry players, but if we’re on about good news, thank God for us, Connor signed his contract not long ago.”