Midfielder Lee Martin says he definitely wants to stay with Town and wants his contract situation resolved quickly. The 25-year-old’s current terms are up at the end of the season.
Martin says progress is being made: "Negotiations are continuing and I definitely want to stay here. I love it here, I’m really enjoying it and I’m playing well. I get on with the rest of the lads.
"I’d like to get it all wrapped up sooner rather than later. To be honest, I just get on with playing and leave everything else to my agent. Some players get caught up in all the talking but that’s what agents are for.”
Manager Paul Jewell says Martin’s representative is due to meet with owner Marcus Evans to talk about a new deal: "I think his agent is going to meet the owner to discuss that. We’d like to get that tied up and we hope it’ll be a positive outcome.
"If it’s not, we’ll have to deal with it because we don’t really want players running out of contract who have a value on the transfer market.
"We want Lee to stay, he’s part of the way I see us moving forward. I think he wants to stay, it’s just whether we can thrash out a deal.”
Jewell says there are no other players currently being spoken to regarding new terms: "Not at the moment.”
In addition to Martin, Jack Ainsley, Damien Delaney, Andy Drury, Nathan Ellington, Arran Lee-Barrett, Jaime Peters, Ryan Stevenson, Joe Whight and Cormac Burke all have deals which are up at the end of June 2013, while skipper Carlos Edwards, Jason Scotland, Ronan Murray and Luke Hyam all signed new one-year contracts in the latter part of last season.
As regards Saturday's game, Martin felt Town dealt with the challenging conditions better than the visitors in the latter stages: "It was tough in the heat but it was the same for both teams. I thought our fitness told in the end because we were well on top for the last 20 minutes or so.
"It was a well-earned point. It would have been hard to come away with nothing and to be honest we’re disappointed we didn’t get all three points. But if we can’t defend set plays at one end and can’t score from them at the other, we’re in trouble.
"We’ll take the point. Blackburn are a good, experienced team. We just need a bit more belief and we can go places. Our young lads did well.”
The former Manchester United man says there is a good spirit at Town at present: "The average age of the team is about 24 and we don’t have a big squad but there is a togetherness about us that I haven’t experienced since I came to the club.
"There’s a massive togetherness and with a smaller squad it’s easier to get to know each other. We’ve had loan players here in the past and they were playing for themselves rather than the team.
"We’ve got young guys here who are hungry and keen to show what they can do. The only way we will get success is to have that togetherness with everyone working hard and pulling together. The fans can see what we are trying to do — to play the right way and bring the youngsters through.”