PAOLO Di Canio is keen for Lecsinel Jean-Francois to commit his future to the club after describing the versatile defender as an important part of his plans for the coming season.

The Haiti international joined Town back in 2008 and went on to feature in over 30 games during the club’s failed play-off campaign.

Last year Lecsinel struggled to hold down a regular starting spot but came into the centre of defence towards the end of the season under former boss Paul Hart.

The 24-year-old impressed despite being unable to prevent Town from finishing bottom of League One, and Di Canio wants him to follow in the footsteps of youngsters Mark Scott and Nathan Thompson by signing a new deal at the club.

“Paolo has spoken to Lecs and explained to him how important he is, but we just need to wait and see. He has a couple of weeks left before he needs to advise us one way or the other,” Town chief executive Nick Watkins told the Advertiser.

“We would love him back, he is a fantastic player and maybe last season he did not get the rub of the green in terms of a regular starting position, but he is a player who when he knows he is a regular and is playing week in and week out then his confidence goes sky high.”

Town are looking threadbare in defence at the moment following the departures of Scott Cuthbert and Alan Sheehan last week, and it is no doubt an area that Di Canio will be looking to strengthen.

The Italian has already stated his intent to bring in up to five players this summer, although that figure could be increased if the likes of Lecsinel or Michael Timlin opt to move on.

And by the time the players return to pre-season training towards the end of this month, Di Canio is keen to have two players challenging for each position.

“Last season we got caught up in a bit of a dilemma, which was we had not quite got the blend right with the squad that was put together in the close season,” added Watkins.

“We were not firing on all cylinders as we had been the previous season and so we set about adding to the squad, a bit like a chemist adding compounds to a mixture in the hope of creating a big bang.

“That did not happen but we kept adding people to the mix and as a consequence we ended up with a rather large squad. The difficulty with this is self-evident as you cannot please all people all the time.

“You need to keep a sensible size squad together that gives you cover in the key areas but where everybody in that squad is capable of playing in the first team.

“All the players need to understand that they have a chance of playing in the first team because there are not too many people in front of them contesting for the same berth.”