Manager Mick McCarthy says he’s comfortable with the current contract situation at the club, despite the likes of Lee Martin and Andy Drury being on terms which are up at the end of the season. In total 11 players are on deals which only stretch as far as the end of next June.
McCarthy says offering contracts at this stage of the season isn’t always a good idea: "I have a bit of a problem with going around and offering people contracts. It can have a good effect or it can have a negative effect.
"When somebody signs a nice two or three-year deal I’ve had it where they don’t kick a ball then until about March. That’s no good to me.
"I’m cool with what’s going on at the minute. Let everybody fight for their position, let everybody fight for contracts for next season. That’s not concerned me as yet.
"My job is still to keep the team in the league. We’ve had a good start but if you just take your foot off the gas for one moment you find you’ve lost three and you’re back in that bottom three, and that’s what I don’t want to happen.
"My focus will be on the games, [as well as] with the long-term, looking what’s going to be here, what might not be here, what will change, what won’t change. But my focus is on Millwall.”
In terms of Town’s loan players, he says he began trying to establish their longer term situations as soon as he was appointed: "When I walked in the door I started trying to get hold of people and seeing what their thoughts were.
"But I kind of know what their thoughts are — they’ll wait and see, let’s wait and see what January brings.
"They’re all on short-term deals with recalls for one reason, that if they need them they’ll call them back. If they don’t, we can discuss something.”
Keeper Stephen Henderson is amongst the six domestic loanees whose loans are up in January — the others are DJ Campbell, Bradley Orr, Tyrone Barnett, Danny Higginbotham and Bilel Mohsni — but McCarthy didn’t want to be drawn on whether he would be looking to extend the Irishman’s stay: "I’m not really bothered about discussing all that because all that does is put it out in the open and all the time there are stories about loan players. He’s playing tomorrow.
"If they want to bring him back, they’ve got a recall on him, so I might as well just concentrate on the next game.
"But he’s done well. He’s played well in the last three games. He made a great save against Nottingham Forest at 1-0. He’s playing well.”