Boss Roy Keane says he plans to start work this evening on improving his Town side ahead of next season. The Town manager says he was disappointed to end the season with Sunday’s 3-0 defeat to Sheffield United.
Keane said: "My work starts this evening. I'll be on the phone tonight and I'm not a great one for speaking on the phone. My wife will tell you that.
"But hopefully the biggest bill the club will get from me this summer will be my phone bill. My work starts now. Most definitely. There's no switching off.
"I don't even like talking about summer holidays. We don't deserve a holiday. Of course you need to switch off physically and mentally, but this idea of people off gallivanting for eight or nine weeks isn't going to happen.
"No one likes losing but imagine if we'd won today. I might have thought maybe 'we're not that bad'.
"You always have doubts in the back of your mind - shoes, cars, holidays, your marriage - but this has confirmed it in my mind, especially those last 20 minutes. I'll be bringing in characters.
"Forget stats, ages, the country they're from or what size boot they wear. It's all about characters."
Keane, who has already confirmed that his players will be back for pre-season on June 28th, says a home loss was not the way he wanted to end the season: "It's unbelievably disappointing to finish the season like that.
"We wanted to go out on a high and our home form has been pretty decent but what could have gone wrong, did go wrong.
"The first goal was a really bad goal to give away and after going down to 10 men, we never looked like getting back in the game.
"It was very disappointing for Tom obviously, getting the red card. I had no complaints over the first booking but he got the ball for the second and sometimes you are looking for the referee in those situations to help you out but he didn't. He's a good lad though and he will bounce back.
"I looked around at the end and we looked a small team compared to Sheffield. We need big, physical men and it makes me appreciate the challenge we have here and the job I have and that job starts today."
Blades boss Kevin Blackwell feels his side’s failure to compete at the top of the division was partly down to their unsuccessful play-off campaign a year ago and it putting them behind as he sought to add to his squad: "We always feel we're a club that should be going for promotion but at the end of last season we found ourselves with 15 players out of contract.
"It left us with a big hole to fill and we'd already missed six weeks of the transfer window. We've been trying to catch up ever since.
"We couldn't get the type of player we were looking for and we had to rely on loans That leads to instability and a lack of consistency but to finish eighth is still a terrific achievement for the players.
"It'll be good to get a solid squad together and start again from scratch. We've had a colossal number of injuries and 24 debuts.
"That's completely different to having a squad of players you know and when situations are controlling you, rather than you controlling them, it makes it very hard."