Town boss Paul Cook says he, owner Marcus Evans and general manager of football operations Lee O'Neill have already started to discuss who will be offered new contracts with more than half of those with professional deals having their terms coming to an end this summer.
Young right-back Barry Cotter departed the club earlier in the week, presumably to give him time to find a new side back in his native Republic of Ireland where the season is about to start, while 26 other players* have contracts which are up in the close season.
Asked whether contracts will start to be offered to those players he wants to keep hold of now rather than waiting until later in the campaign, Cook said: "One hundred per cent. If I felt now that contracts can be offered out to players that I believe can be here [next season], 100 per cent we’ll start offering contracts out.
"It’s something that Marcus the owner, myself and Lee are discussing daily, every two days. We’ve got a good meeting again tomorrow morning.
"There’s a lot of work going on behind the scenes and I think our supporters can be excited and happy with that.
"I don’t like lads being out of contract, I genuinely don’t. The reason why so many lads here are out of contract is because people aren’t happy with where we are. That’s the brutal truth of it.
"Because the majority of players I’ve worked with, I’ve never had them out of contract, I don’t allow it.
"Going forward, I’m screaming for lads to say to me, ‘I want to be here in the future, I want to be part of this success story’.
"And I think going forward we will start offering contracts out and I’m sure, as you can imagine, there will be other players leaving the club, 100 per cent.”
He added: "I will make those decisions. I don’t agree with the decisions [being delayed] because I’ve been in that player’s chair. I’ve sat in the manager’s too when a manager will tell me, ‘well, we don’t really know what’s happening, we’re going to wait until the end of the season’. I would be a bit more brutally honest with my players than that. You can be rest assured.”
*Luke Chambers, Cole Skuse, Stephen Ward, Emyr Huws, Freddie Sears, Kayden Jackson, Teddy Bishop, Alan Judge, Toto Nsiala, Janoi Donacien, James Wilson, Gwion Edwards, Aaron Drinan, Tristan Nydam, Ben Morris, Ben Folami, Harry Wright, Idris El Mizouni, Liam Gibbs, Bailey Clements, Levi Andoh, Adam Przybek, Bert White, Kai Brown, Zak Brown and Tommy Hughes.
Town have previously confirmed they have options to keep Skuse, Ward, Sears, Bishop, Judge, Nsiala, Donacien, Wilson, Nydam, Morris, Folami, El Mizouni, Clements, Andoh, Przybek, White, Kai Brown, Zak Brown and Hughes.
As previously reported, Town have offered a new extended contract to Gibbs, who doesn’t have a year’s option on his current deal.