Town manager Paul Jewell has admitted that he has concerns that only 12 members of his squad are currently contracted for next season. The Blues boss has sought to address this to some extent this week by offering new terms to youngsters Josh Carson, Luke Hyam and Ronan Murray.
Jewell said: "It does [concern me] and I said this time last year that I don’t really want to be in this situation again, but we are. I’ll take responsibility, I’m not hiding behind anyone.
"We signed a lot of players on short-term, one-year deals and there are a lot of players whose contracts are running out, and the fact is that we haven’t done well enough as a team or as individuals to really extend those contracts at the moment. But there’s still time for players to do that.”
He says he has spoken to his squad about the situation and told them it’s down to them to win new deals: "I had a conversation with the players last week and said to them that I know there is a lot of uncertainty, a lot of players out of contract and a few loan players.
"But the ball is really in the players’ court. I understand the uncertainty but it’s really up to them make us make up our minds, and if it isn’t going to happen for them here, or they don’t want to be here, move somewhere else.
"But we’ve got 20-odd games left of this season, there’s an awful lot of football still to be played.”
Those contracted beyond this season are Jaime Peters, Damien Delaney, Lee Martin, Arran Lee-Barrett, Andy Drury, Nathan Ellington, Jimmy Bullard, Jack Ainsley, Joe Whight (all June 2013), Jay Emmanuel-Thomas, Michael Chopra (2014) and Aaron Cresswell (2015), while Lee Bowyer, Jason Scotland and perhaps other members of the squad have options for further years based on appearances.