Chief executive Simon Clegg has revealed that he, owner and chairman Marcus Evans and manager Paul Jewell held a five-hour meeting in Dublin to discuss next season’s budget and transfer plans. The trio were in the Irish capital, where Evans has his European headquarters, last Wednesday.
Clegg said: "During the meeting between Marcus, Paul and myself last week we talked about what sort of money would be available, the sort of players that we want to bring in and those that are out of contract that we want to keep.
"Those discussions are just in the process of being started now and I’m hoping that some of them will be done sooner rather than later.
"But I don’t want to be boxed into a corner on this because they’ll take as long as they’ll take and you’d not expect me to get those deals done at any price just for the sake of getting them done, that’s not good business.”
The chief executive says new manager Jewell wanted to assess the out of contract players before making any decisions: "Paul came in, wanted to take some time to look at the squad, he didn’t want to have his hand forced. We’ve done that and I think the players have accepted it.
"Publicly Paul has said that we wanted to get to the position where we’re guaranteed playing Championship football next season and I think three points on Saturday certainly helped on that.”
Clegg wouldn’t be drawn on whether the likes of Jimmy Bullard and Kieron Dyer would become permanent additions to Jewell’s squad, but isn’t ruling it out: "You wouldn’t expect me to back myself into a corner on that.
"I think Jimmy’s made a huge contribution since he arrived at the club, both on the pitch and in the dressing room, and was also fantastic with some of our corporate guests.
"He’s a pleasure to have around the place, but let’s see where we get to over the next couple of months.”
The former British Olympic Association chief says Marcus Evans’s intentions with Town remain the same: "The owner will want to support the new manager in the same way that he supported the old manager.
"If the ambition is still the same, and I can assure you that it is, then there’ll be no holding back, but conversely, don’t think it’s a blank chequebook because it’s not.
"I’m certainly not ruling out big money signings. I’m very excited from the conversations that the three of us had in Dublin last week.”