Charlton Athletic in contract talks with six of squad – and confirm exit of trio

Charlton Athletic are in talks with six players – Ben Amos, Chuks Aneke, Jake Forster-Caskey, Adam Matthews, Jason Pearce and Ben Watson – about extending their contracts.

All of them are due to be free agents at the start of July.

The Addicks have also confirmed that Deji Oshilaja, Darren Pratley and Andrew Shinnie will not be offered new terms. The trio had already announced last week that they would not be staying on.

Akin Famewo, Ian Maatsen, Matt Smith, Liam Millar and Jayden Stockley have all returned to their parent clubs. Centre-forward Stockley, who has a little over a year left on his Preston contract, has indicated that he would like to stay in SE7.

Erhun Oztumer and Marcus Maddison, who spent the second half of last season on loan at Bristol Rovers and Bolton respectively, will not be retained.

Charlton owner Thomas Sandgaard told Charlton TV: “We have a number of players that are out of contract, a few of those we’ll try to see if we can negotiate for them to stay at the club.

“There were a couple of the loan players that we are also interested in to see if they can become permanent signings. Other than that, we are wide open on what we are looking at, whether it is loan players from Premier League clubs or positive permanent signings.

“We also have some great talent in the academy and we’ll continue to develop that and give those players a chance too.”

Charlton manager Nigel Adkins added: “Our job is about building a squad that puts us in the best position for the 2021-22 season.

“We finished the season well and have a core of good, hungry players, so I’m looking forward to seeing how we can progress over the next few weeks.”

A full interview with Sandgaard will air on the club’s end-of-season show tonight, starting at 7pm.

The US-based Dane said: “We have to get into deciding what players we keep and what players we get in. We’re already deep into those discussions. It is obviously exciting and also very decisive on how we are going to play and how well we’ll do next season.”