The 2013/14 season is now in the record books. Few of us predicted back in August what a wonderful season it would be, or how close the Rams would come to the big prize.

First of all Steve McClaren, the players and coaches deserve a massive ‘thank you’ from all of us.

But now - what should we expect to happen next?

First the easy one; the loan players - Andre Wisdom, George Thorne, Patrick Bamford and Zack Whitbread will return to their clubs. It’s easy to imagine the Rams will take a serious look at signing a couple of them permanently, but I can see money and failure to win promotion being a possible stumbling block.

We have also seen several players who are out of contract released, in addition to the five who have already been announced earlier in the season. As I expected the club also announced this week that Adam Legzdins, James Bailey and Ben Davies have also been waved farewell.

It was no surprise that the optional year on Jamie Ward's contract was exercised by the club but after much speculation by fans, John Eustace was also retained for another season.

Surprisingly the club have also listed Lee Naylor as in negotiations for next campaign, so perhaps he has impressed McClaren enough to keep him on as cut price cover for Forsyth.

The Rams have several players under contract who may not see too much activity next season: Kieran Freeman, Shaun Barker, Mark O'Brien, Tom Naylor, and Conor Sammon. I think we may well see Freeman, Naylor and Sammon going out on long term loans.

Then, of course, the hard part: how much incoming activity will we see?

A couple of weeks ago, Sam Rush made a statement which bothered me when speaking about the possibility of promotion in an interview with BBC Sport:

"We have the basis of a Premier League squad; I don't think we need to make hasty changes. I think we have a super squad and we will look at that as things go on. We are looking to add to the group, but I don't think we need to rush anything. If we can strengthen in due course then, of course, we will."

If the Rams are ready for the Premier League, then it will certainly follow that the squad is ready for another season in the Championship. While the Rams certainly have the basis of a strong squad, we are short of numbers.

Starting at the back, here is what I see as our needs:

Now Legzdins has not been re-signed, the Rams may decide not to sign another keeper. To cover short term injuries or suspensions, Kelle Roos or Mats Morch could be on the bench keeper, with perhaps a loan keeper signed if Lee Grant were to be out for a longer spell.

Excluding Shaun Barker and Mark O'Brien, we currently only have three defenders with first team experience: Richard Keogh, Jake Buxton and Craig Forsyth. For the back four, we certainly need a right back and two other defenders with some flexibility for cover.

In midfield, the return of Paul Coutts gives the team some more options, but a replacement for George Thorne is urgently needed.

In attack, I would say we need a replacement for Patrick Bamford and cover for Chris Martin.

Of course, all of these requirements assume that none of our existing first choice players will be moving on. I don't know how realistic this is. On the one hand, they are all under contract. On the other hand, none of them - with the exception of Simon Dawkins - are McClaren signings, and he may have players in mind he prefers.

The relative lack of activity in January suggests Steve is reasonably content with his squad. But then pretty much all of the players played extremely well, and some managers could be casting covetous glances towards the iPro. Certainly, Sam Rush's comments suggest that he does not expect key players to be leaving.

All in all, I don't expect to see many, if any, first choice players leaving; and I do expect to see five or six coming in; mainly for cover except for a right back and a holding midfielder.

The next couple of months will be interesting down at the iPro.

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