ONLY a top offer could persuade Town to part with any of their talented young players.

That's the pledge from club chief executive Andrew Watson with less than a month to the January transfer window for top-flight clubs.

A year ago, of course, Town sold Jon Stead to Blackburn for £1.3m and scouts are once again attending Town's matches in big numbers.

Financial pressure has eased on Town, however, thanks to Stead's sale and the promotion won by Peter Jackson's team, so Town plan to keep their squad intact this time unless some serious money is on the table.

"It's good news that scouts are turning up because it shows we've got lads who are viewed as talented by other clubs and underlines the truly excellent job being done by our Academy," said Watson.

"The fact remains we haven't received any bids and if one was to come in for a player, it would have to be a very, very good one.

"We are simply not in as tight a corner as we were last year on the financial side, having cut the debt left from administration from £1.4m to around £500,000.

"Let's not kid ourselves, that's still an awful lot of money, but we have made a great amount of progress and we are not in a situation where we need to accept a transfer fee.

"For any offer to be accepted it would have to be a top one, the sort we simply couldn't turn down, but we haven't had one and we won't even think about that scenario until if and when something changes."

Mr Watson said Town's squad development was discussed "almost daily" with Jackson, whose recent focus has been talks on a permanent contract with Paul Rachubka.

"There's no silly money being paid around the League any more, as can be seen by my old club Burnley turning down £500,000 for top scorer Robbie Blake," added Watson.

"Peter and I have regular talks about all aspects of our squad, we have a great relationship and we are planning very positively for the future."