Dunfermline have been handed a huge boost when midfielder Josh Falkingham agreed a two-year deal.
The one-time Leeds United trainee’s contract was due to expire at the end of the season and he had initially told manager Jim Jefferies he was not ready to re-sign a move that saw him lose the captaincy of the club.
However, following further discussions with the player and his agent earlier this week the 23-year-old has now committed himself to the summer of 2016.
With Andy Geggan, Ryan Wallace, Shaun Byrne and highly-rated teenagers Lewis Martin and Ryan Williamson having also penned new agreements, Jefferies is optimistic he is constructing a squad capable of building a brighter future for the Pars, who are hopeful of winning promotion via the play-offs this season.
He said: “As time goes on, you want to sort it out one way or another and I’m delighted to get Josh tied up for another two years.
“The boys we’ve brought in recently, Danny Grainger, Jonathan Page and Ross Forbes, proves to folk that we are determined to get ourselves to a higher level.
“We’ve given ourselves an opportunity of promotion. That’s where we want to be, as a club, as supporters, as players, as management and sometimes it just takes time for the penny to drop that Dunfermline is a big club.
“The important thing is we want players who are fully committed to what we are trying to do, not just in this league but in trying to take the club up.
“We’ve identified the people we want to keep and we’ve had great commitment from the lads.
“When players say ‘I’m ambitious’, I tell them to take us to a higher level. Do they think we’re sitting here not wanting to be ambitious? We all want the same thing.
“We’re not there yet but we look favourites to get a play-off place and then it’s cup-final stuff.
“There’s no guarantees but, if we do it, we will be going into the Championship with a big club and a club that will be wanting to get into the Premiership in future years.”
Jefferies is desperate to take another giant stride towards sealing second spot in the league when his team host Ayr United on Saturday, with an 11-point advantage over their visitors and third-placed Stranraer.
With Arbroath to face on Tuesday and Stranraer on Saturday week, Jefferies is hopeful last weekend’s 4-2 victory at Forfar is the start of a spell that could help define the Fifers’ season.
He added: “I said we had four massive games. We had not done well up at Forfar, Ayr United are up there beside us, Arbroath are fighting for their lives and Stranraer are probably closest to challenging us.
“If we get the lion’s share of the points from those games, we could go and clinch second spot early and then we could rest players ahead of the play-offs.
“We got a great result at Forfar and it’s a case of one down and three to go.
“We’re in a great position and we could make it an even better position in the next four or five matches. We could make it tough for anybody to catch us.”