FOUR star players are locked in contract talks to become Millennium Minstermen with York City.

The quartet are strikers Rodney Rowe and Neil Tolson, plus midfield duo Alan Pouton and Scott Jordan.

All are due to go out of contract this summer as does defender Tony Barras, whom City are resigned to losing at the end of this season after his talks broke down.

Barras was subsequently put on the transfer-list. While City have had no offers it is understood Division Two rivals Wigan Athletic, who had a £350,000 bid for the centre-back rejected last season, are favourites to take him.

To avoid a similar impasse and the prospect of the club being plunged into a May-away crisis by allowing negotiations to drag on, the club have asked for early clues as to what Jordan, Pouton, Tolson and Rowe will do.

Manager Alan Little said he expected to have indications by the end of next week from each of the foursome.

He declined to disclose the length of the contracts offered to the quartet, adding merely: "The club has made them offers and we would like to keep them all. But they've all been given seven days so it can be sorted one way or another."

City would be loath to lose any of the four. While both Tolson and Rowe have been eclipsed by the emergence of Richard Cresswell, each has shown signs of reproducing the form that made Rowe top scorer last season with Tolson taking the honours the term before in his debut stint as a Minsterman.

Pouton, who only turns 22 in 48 hours' time, remains alongside Cresswell and Martin Garratt as one of City's major assets even though his season has so far been wrecked by a 14-week absence through a serious ankle injury.

Fellow midfielder Jordan, like Rowe aged 23, has enjoyed his longest run at the heart of the team, proving himself one of City's consistently able schemers.

Should any decide not to take up the fresh terms then the major stumbling-block could be over 25-year-old Tolson.

He is the only one of the four above the 24-year-old threshold that means under the Bosman ruling City would not be entitled to a fee.

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