Andy Thorn has started planning for next season already, even though the old season only finished for Coventry City on Saturday.
He categorically stated that the club will not be held to ransom by out of contract players, but said if they want to stay at the club that is fine with him as he has in mind who he would like to bring to the club as replacements.
Thorn is hoping that the three big names, Westwood, King and Gunnarsson will agree to sign their new deals, but if they decide not to he has contingency plans in place.
Thorn said to the CT: "We won't be held to ransom. We've made our offers and made it clear that we want them to stay but there's nothing more we can do now. The ball's in their court."
"It's down to them to make their decisions and it will be fantastic if they decide to stay, but I won't let the club go into the pre-season without replacements. This is a big club and we're going places; if some people don't want to come with us on that ride, no problem - we'll look for others who do."
"I've got my list just in case people don't re-sign and I won't be led down the garden path. If that starts to happen, I'll make the decision because we need to move on."
In his post match press interview at Carrow Road in which he saw his side earn a creditable point in a 2-2 draw with already promoted Norwich City, Thorn said: "It's a shame the season's ending. The time seems to have flown by but I think everybody could see that we've come a really long way.
Under Thorn Coventry City won 14 points in ten games with three wins, five draws and two defeats. City lost the two games because they conceded very late goals to dent them a point.
"We've pitted out wits against some of the best sides in the Championship and come out with a lot of credit and I'd love to keep that going,2 he said.
"Norwich are a really good team and they wanted to end their season in style but we stood our ground, gave a really good account of ourselves and showed what we're all about. We knew that they would be buzzing but we talked a lot about staying focused on our own game."
"I was delighted with our performance and particularly pleased with our second goal because it's the sort of thing we work on in training all the time, a great move that epitomised just what we are trying to do. When you play like that you'll sometimes make mistakes and concede goals but there's a lot of confidence in the dressing room now and everybody looks after each other."
"That's the way forward for our whole club. That's what we want to aim for and if we keep doing what we've been doing and tweak it here and there there's no reason why we can't achieve the sort of thing they've done at Norwich.
"There was a great atmosphere out there, but just imagine the Ricoh full up on the last day of the season. I'll have some of that and I think we're on the right road to getting it."