Town boss Paul Jewell has offered contracts to six of the Blues' first and second-year pros. Half have received one-year deals, the rest six-month extensions to their time at Portman Road.
Jewell said: "I’ve spoken to the most of the younger players. I’ve offered Luke Hyam, Troy Brown and Ronan Murray a year’s contract. The likes of Jack Ainsley, Tom Eastman, Conor Hourihane we’ve offered six-month contracts.”
The Blues boss says he wants the latter trio to prove themselves during their additional six months: "The reason we’ve done that is because I’m not quite sure. I don’t want to let them go straight away. I want them to come back in pre-season, maybe get them out on loan and have a look at them then.
"They’re entirely entitled to walk away from that because that’s a less offer than they’ve already got. But I want to keep their hunger here and I’m not 100% sure about them, so I’ve given them the option of six months.
"Hopefully they’ll take it and they’ll come back and start the season well and get longer contracts. I just thought that sometimes it’s easy to give out contracts willy-nilly and I want to keep their hunger and desire here.
"I’ve not seen them in first team action at all, that’s the difficulty. They’re all good lads and I think they could be decent players but I’ve only seen them playing against the likes of Oxford reserves and Watford reserves and I’d like to see them at a higher level.”
Jewell didn’t mention the situation with Bermudian winger Reggie Lambe, who is on loan at Bristol Rovers, but says he's still to speak to midfielders Jamie Griffiths and David Cawley, who have been sidelined with injury: "Jamie Griffiths has been injured since I’ve been here, I’ve never seen him play and David’s out for another six weeks. I will speak to them first and it’s always difficult with players who have been injured.”
Bury St Edmunds-born Griffiths has a back problem, while Irishman Cawley has a knee injury.