With the decisions on players now announced the shortened summer break brings a different kind of challenge for Paul Simpson and his staff, with the focus on putting a group together that will at the very least hold its own at the next level up.
“We’re in a better position than we were last season, that’s one thing I can say,” the gaffer told us. “There are a lot of blank spaces that need to be filled so that means there’s a lot of work to be done.
“This will not be a holiday for me. Between now and 28 June I may not be in the country for a period of it, but I’m quite sure I’m going to be working.
“My family know that, even though I will be able to switch off, at times, we know that we’ve got to be ready for next season.
“I want the bulk of the squad together for 28 June. I’m fully aware that might not actually happen, it might take a little bit longer but hopefully, when 5 August comes round, I want to be in a position where we can start the season really well.”
On what he’s been told by the board, he said: “I’ve been told to put a squad together and the board will work out how they’re going to pay for it.
“What I will say is there isn’t a massive increase in the money that comes from going up to League One. There’s a big jump from League One to the Championship, and an enormous jump from the Championship to the Premier League, but ours is minimal.
“We’ve had an extra bit of a boost because of the finances that have come in by being involved in the play-off final, but a lot of that will probably go out in some bonus payments that have to be made.
“We’re still not awash with cash, it’s as simple as that. We need investment coming into this football club, we need a decision on what’s going to happen with Purepay, we don’t know that yet, and we know that people are frantically trying to get decisions, which has been really hard for the last however long I’ve been here.
“I keep being told that we can’t get a decision. We have to get decisions on that, we need to know where we can be and where we can move forward without that hanging round our necks.
“Hopefully something will be decided over those things, whether it be new investment coming in or a decision on Purepay. We just need to know because we want to keep this moving forward.
“We’ve got brilliant support coming from local businesses, from the numbers that are turning up for our home games, and I hope it’s going to have a positive impact on season ticket sales and on our home games.
“I think it will have with the away support that we’ll bring in with some of the clubs we have to face.
“We can make this club better together, not just Andrew Jenkins, John Nixon or Steven Pattison, and the Trust, we’re going to need everybody to dig in and really roll their sleeves up to make this a better football club.”