AND then there was 18.

With Carlos Edwards definitely staying next season and Ian McLoughlin and Billy Clark not being offered contracts the list of question marks for next season pinned up in Ipswich Town manager Paul Jewell’s office is diminishing.

It started off as 21 players out of contract on June 30 with new deals having been offered to David Norris (last November) and Gareth McAuley, Damien Delaney, Brian Murphy and Colin Healy (all within the last fortnight).

This leaves Arran Lee-Barrett, Alan Quinn, Conor Hourihane and Troy Brown still awaiting their fates along with loanees Kevin Lisbie and Pablo Counago plus youngsters who were given one year contracts last summer after graduating from the academy.

The youngsters are: Luke Hyam, Tom Eastman, Reggie Lambe, Ronan Murray, Jamie Griffiths, Dave Cawley Jack Ainsley.

It would be unfair to pre-judge the futures of so many players, but of those still be offered deals Lee-Barrett, Murray and Hyam would appear to be the best placed to still be at Portman Road next term.

This time last year midfielder Clark had the football world at his feet having been the first of the group that graduated last summer to get his first team chance.

But he has not ‘trained on’ in greyhound terms and there have been question marks about his attitude while his former fellow Northgate High School class mate Hyam has made significant progress.

Clark made three substitute appearances at the back end of last season having a hand in Jon Walters’ late equaliser at Newcastle United, but has failed to feature this term.