HEREFORD midfielder Tom Owen-Evans has attracted interest from other clubs for next season.

The 25-year-old midfielder has 16 goals this season but is out of contract this season at Edgar Street.

LIVE BLOG: Hereford FC v Brackley Town minute by minute updates

“He has got a lot of interest but we want to keep him here,” said manager Josh Gowling.

“He’s been an unbelievable servant to this football club and we’ll do everything to try and keep him. But when he’s got 16 goals he’s going to have interest.

“If he does go I hope he goes to a Football League club because he deserves it. He’s given me three seasons of his career and I really appreciate his loyalty.”

Gowlings says he is currently talking to his squad ahead of next season and with additions he hopes to have 15 players signed before pre-season commences.

“We’ve got to look at recruitment in the summer to bring in a bit more a noise and experience,” he added.

“We’ve got our target but have to wait. A lot of teams like York have got an open chequebook and just do what they want and offer players double their wages.

“We can’t do that so we’ve got to be more diligent in the market, more patient and more shrewd because money really counts.

“We’ve got our individual targets and those negotiations and conversations have been happening. We’ve spoken to the squad about who we are going to keep so in the next week or so we’re going to nail down our squad first and then look at bringing in some additions.

“We’ll keep a core of the squad but where we are at as a football club we’re going to have to rebuild every season.

“We will keep a core of the squad together and then bring in a portion of players again we will be waiting for donations from the fans, if you want to improve the squad we need more money.

“The reality is we keep the core of the squad together, we’ve got money to bring in a certain amount of players which we’ll do but I want to kick on.

“In order for me to kick on I need more money so that will have to wait. What I don’t want to do is get to the start of pre-season and have 10 players so ideally we’ll have a core with a few addition so we’ve got 13, 14, 15 players and then we can wait a bit longer.

“If we’ve got a core of 15 at the start of pre-season we can wait for a possible other five and kick on from there.