THE Swindon Town management will address the contractual situation of several members of the club’s squad in January as they look to build for next season.

A number of key players, including Alan McCormack, Simon Ferry and Aden Flint, will see their current deals with Town expire at the end of the campaign but manager Paolo Di Canio delayed negotiating new terms as he handled the onset of the transfer embargo and a host of injuries.

Now, however, with the ban on registering new players lifted and the casualty list beginning to diminish, the Robins boss has revealed he will open talks in earnest at the turn of the year.

He said: “I couldn’t because we have the picture in front of us, we know who’s going to finish his contract under me, under us, under the club but it’s not the moment.

“With the embargo, with injuries, with many problems we couldn’t think about some players - maybe five or six, but not many - it’s not the moment.

“We’ve got many difficulties. We can see what is going on in the future.

“Now it’s clear the plan is two years to reach the Championship but it depends what we do in two months. The plan can change from the board who make decisions, not even me, so how can I take the responsibility for something that we don’t know what’s going on? It’s not the time. In January for sure, it depends where we stay, we are going to make decisions looking forward for the next three months or even for the future “Paolo Di Canio has a two-year contract but anyway there is a new situation on top, in the board, everything can happen. That is not a message I am sending but you have to be honest.

“Everything can happen so how can I think now about renewing the contract of Flint, Devera? I can’t. The priority is the squad now, to get results now, to try to give the fans good performances, enough points to stay away from dangerous situations and in January maybe, if the plan keeps going with the same idea, we can start not in April but in January.”

Di Canio also hinted that McCormack would have already triggered an extension clause within his contract had Swindon not been in embargo.

He said: “With McCormack there is a sort of promise. We can’t go through straight away now, also because of the embargo.

“We couldn’t increase it. There is some clause that with someone maybe the new contract starts from next year but increase a bit this year maybe already, “We worked already at the end of September, under embargo, we made a promise but in this moment after the many problems we’ve got we stopped for a bit.

“Now the players understand and also they only think they have to play because if they want to stay in here or go to another place, if they want the best contract they have to do the best they have done until now.

“We are talking, not only with McCormack. Everything was frozen. We said we would wait until January. Everyone has to do their job properly and then we are going to start if the plan is clear, it depends on the plan.”