Gillingham boss Andy Hessenthaler will begin talks with his out of contract players once this weekend’s game with Morecambe is out of the way.

Having missed out on the play-offs, Hessenthaler now faces the prospect of sitting down with around fifteen players who will be out of contract at Priestfield this summer, but admitted those talks won’t happen until next week at the earliest:

“It would be wrong for me to sit down and talk to the players before next week,” he told the club’s official website.

“We’ve got one more game to tackle, we want to win the game and then after that we’ve got the presentation night next Saturday.”

“Then we’ll have a bit of time with the players, as a group and individually, after the weekend.”

Hessenthaler will speak with Chairman Paul Scally to discuss the futures of those out of contract players at some point over the next week and is heading to Seville this week to cast his eye over potential new players.

The pair are set to look at which players are worth retaining and which will be let go with Hessenthaler adding:

“I’ve got to sit down and look at the final situation with the chairman. We’ll do that first and see what’s available, look to freshen things up. There’s a number of players out of contract, that will release some of the money hopefully we can use.”

“We’ve gone over budget this year, the chairman’s really pulled out all the stops to try and get that promotion. I’ve got to sit down and see where we’re at and go from there.”

Despite missing out the play-offs for a second season in a row, Hessenthaler believes he will be given a third and final chance to get Gillingham back into League One:

“I signed a three-year deal and hopefully the third year is going to be my year. It won’t be for the lack of trying, I’ll keep putting the hours in to build a team that’s going to be successful.”