Cobblers boss Wilder: Contract talks on hold until next week

Wilder was quick to tie up the futures of central midfield duo Joel Byrom and Jason Taylor last week, with the pair putting pen to paper on two-year deals, and he also announced the release of Lewis Hornby.

A clutch of the current squad also see their deals expire this summer including Lee Collins, Matt Duke, Ben Tozer, Darren Carter, Ian Morris, Tom Newey and Shwan Jalal, but Wilder has made it clear they will not be discovering their Sixfields fate until Monday.

“I am not dealing with any more contracts this week,” said Wilder. “My full focus is on getting a win on Saturday.

“We dealt with a couple of contracts last week, which we thought the timing was right to do, but I won’t be dealing with any other contracts this week.

“We want to win on Saturday, send our supporters home happy, and finish in the top 10 which I think is an achievement from where we were last year.”

And the Town boss explained why he decided to make an early move to keep hold of Taylor and Byrom.

“They (Taylor and Byrom) will have had interest from other clubs because they have done so well for us, so we had to take that into account,” said Wilder.

“People will be saying ‘why haven’t we dealt with the other ones?’, but we had to deal with those two because there was big interest from other clubs.

“The boys never wanted to go anywhere else, but you have to respect the fact that other clubs have shown an interest, and the players have to look after themselves as well.

“That’s why we decided to do those at the appropriate time.

“They weren’t great at Burton on Saturday, but then I didn’t think anybody was great on Saturday.

“But since January they have been pivotal in our upturn in fortunes, and given us a really good base to play and go and get some wins, so it was important we got those two done.”