Chairman Andrew Howard has assured fans Wanderers' finances are on their way to being stabilised - but warned the process could take over a year to complete.

Howard urged patience from supporters while he works to get the club on a more secure footing after the serious financial worries of the last few seasons.

The most recent set of publicly available accounts, from June 2013, show Wanderers made a post tax loss of just over £1million during the 2012/13 season and had to pay a shade under £2.2million to debtors in the following 12 months.

Howard, who took over as chairman of the club on July 31, said: "We feel we are on the right track. The club's paid off a significant amount of long term debt in six months.

"This isn't going to be solved in five minutes. I can't stress enough it's a slow job.

"It's a company that still needs radical change. It isn't a question of just because we are top of the league, everything's OK.

"It's important we say to people we will only survive if we have a good football, and our aim is to have a great football club. It can't happen in one four month period - it will take 18 months. Please be patient with us.

"It continues to be a very difficult situation, but if you asked me is it better than it was in August, I would say yes."

Manager Gareth Ainsworth also spoke this week of how further financial prudence would be needed before the club can get itself back on an even keel.

He said: "The fans realise now how close the club was to being in big trouble - by big trouble, I mean there may not have been a club. That’s the trouble we could have been close to.

"The football and the finances are intertwined. The plan is, let’s get this club stable, let’s get a good financial footing, survive in League Two and kick on from there."

Howard said: "The whole idea is to pull the club together as one entity. We will continue to develop the football side as we develop the business side - the two are intrinsically linked.

"We've entrusted Gareth to sort out the playing side and he's doing a good job. We are working hard to work the other side out."

The chairman added Ainsworth will be able to bring in new players during the transfer window: "We are actively targeting but we only want the right people."