Five Huddersfield Town players who face crucial summers ahead of the 2015/16 season

With player retention more or less resolved, attention at Huddersfield Town now turns to how a squad which is slightly light on numbers can be added to in the coming months.

Talks over new deals for Oscar Gobern and Ishmael Miller are ongoing, while the other out-of-contract players have either been kept on or shipped out and so Chris Powell can now focus on making a mark in his first close-season transfer window.

He has brought in four signings to date and has enjoyed mixed success in the transfer market, with the signings of Grant Holt and Miller perhaps proving the most effective.

But just how will the club's expected transfer activity in the coming months impact on those already at the John Smith's Stadium?

We take a look at five players who face crucial summers, with increased competition meaning a fight for first-team places next season.

Joel Lynch

It is the worst-hidden secret of Town's transfer strategy that a central defender is high on the wishlist, with Powell determined to arrest a worrying total of 75 goals conceded in 2014/15.

He has spoken of hard work on the training field being just as crucial to his hopes of doing just that as a new signing would be, but reinforcements make sense given that Murray Wallace is ostensibly the only definite central defensive cover.

Tommy Smith can push across and appears the natural fit if Town wish to play a three-man central defensive line, but with the 23-year-old having recently signed a new deal and Mark Hudson's place seemingly less at risk due to his status as captain, is Lynch's place most at threat?

The 27-year-old would not be pushed out immediately, because his partnership with Hudson towards the end of the season suggested Town may benefit from a settled pairing heading into a new campaign.

But likewise, he may find rightly or wrongly find himself to be the victim of Powell's decisiveness to address a well-documented flaw.

Conor Coady

Town have undoubtedly looked a better side when the midfield trio of Coady, Jacob Butterfield and Jonathan Hogg has clicked, but it was notable that Coady should be the fall guy in midfield for some of Town's poor form in the early months of 2015.

Their six-game winless run between February and April saw Coady dropped for consecutive away matches at Charlton Athletic and Brentford.

And though they struggled in his absence with 3-0 and 4-1 defeats, his removal from the starting XI hinted at a broader issue, with the Liverpudlian perhaps deemed slightly more dispensable than his two midfield partners by his manager.

It is not yet clear whether the centre of midfield is a priority area for Powell in the transfer window and, indeed, Coady came back into the team with a strong finish to the season and will not give up his place without a fight.

But with Hogg sure to benefit from a full pre-season to get over his niggly injury problems and Oscar Gobern's improved form offering food for thought, he is less assured of a starting position than he once was.

Philip Billing

The Dane appears to be closer to true first-team reckoning under Powell than many of the youngsters at the club, but to realise his aspirations of anchoring the midfield, he will have to impress during pre-season.

He threatened to make a breakthrough at the end of 2013/14 and he was highly-rated by Mark Robins but Powell is notoriously more measured with his approach to blooding the next generation.

Joe Wilkinson made his first start and the likes of William Boyle and Jake Charles have also received first-team minutes since Powell took charge, but Billing, who finished joint-second top goalscorer for the U21s this season, looks ideally suited to the rigours of Championship football.

He turns 19 next month and is at a crucial phase of his footballing and physical development and he could help save some money in the transfer window if he can prove he is worthy of a sustained place in the squad.

There are high hopes for many of the young Terriers and supporters are naturally eager to see whether they can cut it in a competitive division, with Billing seemingly the closest of doing so on a regular basis.

Joe Lolley

Injuries and selection dilemmas regarding Town's precocious young talent stunted his progress somewhat having entered this season off the back of a final-day goal at Watford from 2013/14.

Powell is a big fan of his direct style and desire to commit defenders and acknowledges the excitement he brings to the crowd with such a youthful exuberance in his play.

But the Town boss is also a pragmatist and is reluctant to shoehorn players into a system for the sake of it, with Radoslaw Majewski the prime example here and Lolley has had to be patient as a result.

What could aid him this summer is that the manager has revealed he is keen to try out new ideas with his players and that could mean experimenting with individuals in different positions.

Lolley enjoys operating from the right flank but is ill-suited to the wing-back role Sean Scannell has performed brilliantly this season and so it could be that he is trialled during pre-season in the No.10 position Harry Bunn has at times slotted into which keeps the five-man midfield system intact.

James Vaughan

Having finished as top goalscorer for two consecutive seasons since sealing a permanent move to the club, 2014/15 was both a refreshing and frustrating campaign for Vaughan.

He finished third in the goalscoring stakes this time, with Nahki Wells and Harry Bunn both proving more prolific across the season and that will irk the Liverpudlian, who prides himself on his clinical finishing in front of goal.

Last season was a pleasing one for Vaughan in that it finally felt as if he was seeing off the injury travails which have plagued him ever since his arrival but he will therefore have wanted to fare better than the seven league goals he mustered.

The 26-year-old finds himself in direct competition with Wells and Miller for a place in the side but Town have actually tended to function better with a forward unit of either one of those two paired with Vaughan.

This close-season offers him the chance to steadily build his fitness up once more and prove he can be the main man in attack for Powell next season once again.