Stars Jayson Leutwiler and Dom Smith's talks on hold until Shrewsbury Town stay up
Shrewsbury Town will hold off on new deals for Jayson Leutwiler and Dom Smith until they achieve League One safety.
Keeper Leutwiler and defender Smith are the two most likely in-demand players from the 17 out of contract next summer.
Boss Micky Mellon wants to offer the pair the best deals possible – but the budget is spent at the moment, so any negotiations are on hold.
Asked if he wants to retain the players, Mellon said: "Absolutely. If Shrewsbury are going to build we've got to keep players like that, that's for sure.
"But I don't think there's any need for us to talk about it yet. We need to make sure we're going to be a League One club again next season.
"We wouldn't have the budget to do anything at the minute anyway.
"They're the important things before we can get distracted by anything else. That's me being as honest as possible.
"So we'll cross that bridge when we come to it. There's a few things we need to sit down with Matt (Williams, chief executive) about.
"If we go into the Championship next season, I'm sure they'd be disappointed they've signed a League One contract, so we need to wait and see what happens."
Leutwiler would attract interest from Championship sides seeking competition for a first-choice keeper while Smith, who can play right-back or centre-back, will have ambitious League One clubs interested and those from the second tier if he keeps up his current form.
The pair head an out-of-contract list that also includes Mark Halstead, Nathaniel Knight-Percival, Junior Brown, Liam Lawrence, Jordan Clark, James Collins, Jean-Louis Akpa Akpro, Jermaine Grandison, Scott Vernon, James Caton, Mark Ellis and Mickey Demetriou, the injured James Wesolowski and youngsters Darren McKnight and Sam Patterson.
Meanwhile, Mellon welcomed a selection dilemma for the left-back position for today's visit of Gillingham.
Mat Sadler is available again after a one-match ban and had his best game of the season in Saturday's 1-0 defeat at Wigan.
But Brown was eager to carry on after excelling in Tuesday's superb 4-2 win at Sheffield United.
"It's why we don't have a first team – we have a squad that plays first-team football, because they've all been brought here to play," said the boss.
"It would be difficult to say I have a best XI because I'd be writing off the rest of them. So that situation will be healthy for the group, and we'll try to pick the best team against Gillingham."
