There was no need to keep Saints fans waiting on the retained list.
Saints fans knew that the retained list contained six players in the first team squad, what they didnt know though was that three of them were entitled to new contracts due to clauses being met on their old ones, Saints announced that Jaidi was offered a new deal pretty quickly so that was probably a good time to announce that the other trio had also been offered new deals. The only reason to wait was possibly the trio were not sure they wanted to re sign, I assume that now Saints have announced it that means they have agreed to stay on.
That leaves only two others, David Connolly and Oscar Gobern, its stated that they have to agree their deals although it does confirm they have been offered terms,, again this possibly proves my theory of the the other three signing the automatic extension before its announced, worryingly though it seems that both Connolly & Gobern are not certain to sign, it would have been nice to get both signatures to paper before the summer break, that would enable Nigel Adkins to start to review his squad and decide where he needs to make changes.
With all these contracts being renewed it does leave us with a top heavy squad, one that needs to be trimmed, especially if there is a wages budget and this being the case Adkins has to consider who he can ship out, its going to be a summer of hard thinking for Adkins, one in which he needs to make tough decisions andones made with logic and not sentimentality.