A pay bump for winger Ward

Posh winger Joe Ward has been rewarded for his excellent form this season with the offer of an improved contract.

Ward still has two years on his current deal to go, but the 23-year-old has now been offered a payrise.

“Joe deserves it,” Posh chairman Darragh MacAnthony said. “He has enjoyed a fine season, the manager rates him highly and I expect him to go on to become a phenomenal player for this club. He’s also a lovely lad without a bad bone in his body.”

MacAnthony also revealed two potential summer signings have penned pre-contract agreements with Posh.

The chairman believes the club could make 10-12 signings in the close season, while others will leave. Posh will also only sign loan players if there is an agreement in place to make the move permanent.

“We have a list of targets for next season and work has started on recruiting them. Darren tells us who he wants, (director of football) Barry Fry speaks to agents and clubs to see if we can do a deal and I give it the okay or not financially. We do our due diligence. Character is important to us and we’ve signed a couple of players who were wrong in that respect recently.

“We are allowed to talk to players now who are coming out of contract at the end of the season and Darren will then deliver a presentation of what his plans are. We’ve already signed two players on pre-contracts.

“There won’t be a player signing every week like last summer and we will only sign players on loan if there is a deal in place to sign them permanently.

“We want to go back to the young and hungry policy that worked so well in the past, although it is more difficult now as Championship clubs have copied what I put in place 12 years ago.

“We are expecting offers for strikers Ivan Toney and Matt Godden, but we don’t have to sell them. In fact we want to add to them.”

Posh have signed two new players on pre-contracts.