YORK City boss Russ Wilcox has not yet held discussions with potential transfer targets.

The Minstermen chief is waiting to learn what players are on the market before he draws up a wish list following imminent talks with the Bootham Crescent board regarding the size of next season’s budget.

Wilcox said: “I’ve not spoken to anybody yet but I’m sure some names will start popping up soon in terms of who’s available and we will put a list of targets together after sitting down and deciding where we need to strengthen next season. I will also be discussing the budget for next season with the board pretty soon to see how we can move the club forward.

“The remit when I came here was to keep the club in the Football League but, next season, we want to do better. I’m not saying where we want to go but we want to be very competitive.”

City have 14 players - Michael Coulson, Ben Hirst, Jake Hyde, Femi Ilesanmi, Keith Lowe, John McCombe, Marvin McCoy, Lindon Meikle, Jason Mooney, Russell Penn, Emile Sinclair, Luke Summerfield, Anthony Straker and Dave Winfield - contracted beyond this summer.

Josh Carson, Wes Fletcher, Michael Ingham, Lewis Montrose and Tom Platt, meanwhile, all have deals that expire at the end of June, as do Dan Parslow and Ryan Jarvis, who are currently out on loan at Grimsby and Aldershot respectively.

There will be no discussions on whether individual players’ services will be retained, however, until after the final game of the campaign at Portsmouth on May 2.

The City boss added: “Contracts won’t be addressed until the end of the season because we’ve got a couple of games left and everybody has got to be on the ball in terms of finishing the campaign on a high.

It’s important to keep this tight-knit group together and then, after the Portsmouth game, I will sit down with everybody, including the contracted players, to decide where we go from there.”

With Football League status secure, however, Wilcox can begin to put together the club’s pre-season programme and is hoping to arrange some crowd-pulling friendly fixtures before the start of the final campaign at Bootham Crescent.

“We can start planning for next season in terms of a pre-season because we know what division we are going to be in and that our first game will be on August 8,” he explained.

“I will be hoping to get a couple of decent fixtures that everyone can look forward to.

“Darren Simpson, our fitness coach, will also be giving every player an individual programme to take away with them and follow, regarding their fitness and core work so they come back in good nick. I like the players to come back on July 1 and that’s already been put in place.

“Players generally come back a lot fitter than they did during my career but they will also be in for a testing day the week before to check they are up to speed fitness wise.

“If any aren’t, then they must make sure they are by the time pre-season starts because you want everyone at the same fitness level and that’s worked for me in the past.”