Caldwell keen to get players to commit
Watts made 11 appearances. Highlyrated goalkeeper Lee didn’t feature for City last season, but had been out on loan at Salisbury before injury ended his campaign.
“It’s a huge frustration of mine and I’m sure the supporters are eager to see them get re-signed,” Caldwell said. “Getting Jack Aitchison signed up for another season shows the club’s intent and that we want to build a core group of players that can be successful over several years.
“We are working hard on all the players and hopefully they commit to Exeter very soon. It’s different from a signing outside of the football club with deadlines so we have a bit more flexibility.
“Everyone’s situations are different in terms of needs with a contract, everyone has family situations, so we are working with that. We want it to work sooner rather than later so come June 20 we have as much of the squad together who are ready to start the preparation for the new season.”
He added: “It was the big challenge for us all at the club, to not just build a team for a season or one or two windows, but to build a team for the years to come, hence the signing of Jack to give him another year so he is set here, he knows what he has to do and is only focussed on his game and getting better.
“So, to have 14/15 contracted and, hopefully, we can add to this in the summer with players re-signing, loan players potentially coming back and new signings. The more players we can get in the group that understand how we play is really important for how we progress as a football club.”
Work in the background has been ongoing for a while to try and attract new signings to the club. Caldwell is hopeful of adding names early in the window to help build competition for places when pre-season begins.
“The big thing we look for is good people,” he added. “Since I’ve been at the club, we have recruited well but the big thing is good people and last year was a perfect example of that, in that difficult period everyone stood together and kept working and supporting everyone and that is because we have really good characters at the club.
“On top of that we want good players and getting them in the building makes such a difference, when we had them to pick from in January it was a challenge to pick the team and the finishers and we created competition, so hopefully we will have that at the end of the window to really attack League One next season.”