St Johnstone chairman Steve Brown has admitted he is determined to persuade key players Danny Swanson and Joe Shaughnessy to sign new deals with the club.
The Perth supremo did though admit the former’s future is complicated by the fact that he does not have an agent at the moment while the latter has yet to accept offers to stay.
However, while hoping both will decide to remain at McDiarmid, Brown warned that with an ever-increasing wage bill and worryingly-low home crowds, there is not a lot of financial room for manoeuvre.
He said: “In regards to Danny, we have made a couple of offers to him but he has turned both of them down.
“Danny hasn’t had an agent for some time now so it is extremely difficult.
“We are looking to keep Danny but he is not keen to sit down one-to-one so until such a time as he gets an agent there is not a lot the club can do.
“We have also spoken to Joe over the past couple of months and he has been made firm offers to stay.
“To date, the discussions haven’t reached a satisfactory conclusion but we’ll continue to talk.
“We are determined to reach an agreement not just with Danny and Joe but others the manager has indicated he want to keep.
“However, the majority of our players are under contract until at least 2018.
“Our player wage bill is already 30% higher than it was in the season we won the Scottish Cup but the bottom line is there are seven or eight Scottish clubs who have greater resources.
“The worrying scenario for everybody is that in the last three home games we had less than 8,000 fans through the gates including season ticket holders.
“So we must do what we have done over the last three decades and that is to find players who are within our budget and also continue with our policy of financially rewarding players for success.”
See inside for full and frank interview with chairman Brown.