Gareth Ainsworth believes Wanderers’ play-off campaign won’t see them fall behind other clubs in their preparations for next season.

Teams up and down the Football League have already begun clearing the decks and eyeing up new signings while the Blues boss poured all his attention into a two-legged tie against Plymouth.

The contracts of Steven Craig, Charlie Horlock, Alex Lynch, Nathan Evans, Aaron Holloway, Tommy Fletcher and Hogan Ephraim all expire in the summer and the Blues boss says discussions with those players will take place after the play-offs.

Alfie Mawson, Sam Saunders, Nico Yennaris and Fred Onyedinma are all on loan and poised to return to their parent clubs, but Ainsworth revealed he has been tracking potential new additions since January.

He said: “The signings I’ve got in mind and the signings I’m tracking won’t change too much, maybe the chance of getting the players might change with the status of the club but my preparations for next season are well under-way.

“We’ll need to sign a few as we’ve got six contracts up, we’ve got loan players who will return to their parent clubs and we’ll inevitably lose a few from the squad. The core of the squad is staying together and that’s fantastic.”

All but three members of the current Wycombe squad has seen playing time this season – Fletcher, Evans and Horlock – and the financial restrictions at Adams Park make life tough for Ainsworth when building his squad.

The 42-year-old says he can’t afford to make one “mistake” when recruiting a player and as a consequence puts in the extra hours to ensure that whoever walks through the door is the right man.

“You see players, you like players, you look at players, you watch players week in, week out, you get videos on them, you travel endless miles on the road trying to track them and find out if they’re the right player for you.

“You do your homework on attitudes, look at their mental abilities as well as their football and everything goes into signing someone. There’s a big criteria because we have to get the right players in as we can’t make mistakes at this club as we don’t have enough players to do it.

“If we’d have made a mistake this year it would have cost us big time on the playing side. Luckily, we didn’t and every single player has featured barring Tommy Fletcher, Charlie Horlock and Nathan Evans – Nathan was obviously a different situation.

“Tommy’s been on the bench a number of times and almost had his chance. We haven’t made a mistake this year and we can’t afford to make one next year either.”