Ebbsfleet United will aim to avoid a repeat of last summer’s squad decimation by asking supporters to help them sign key players on new contracts.

Ebbsfleet’s entire squad will be out of contract after April 24, but chairman Duncan Holt revealed he will meet manager Liam Daish on Friday to prepare a list of personnel they want to keep.

Mr Holt (pictured) said he hoped "a supporters’ initiative" could generate enough cash to keep seven or eight of Fleet’s best players.

Fleet’s financial woes worsened as it emerged that just 800 of more than 4,000 MyFC members whose membership was up for renewal last month chose to continue their support.

The number of members has fallen to around 4,500, with the club planning to launch a share issue to raise enough money to see them out of this campaign and into the next one.

Mr Holt said: "We had somewhere in the region of 20 per cent renewing. We were obviously hoping for a lot more, but it gives us something to work with. We are waiting to see how it affects our cash flow.

"We will now focus on two things, the share issue, and getting momentum for a campaign to get the budget to re-sign seven or eight key players.

"It was clear from the supporters forum that nobody wants a repeat of last year. I’ll sit down with Liam and talk about who to keep and get some numbers so we can put them to the supporters as soon as possible.

"Hopefully at the end of April when the 43-week contacts are up there will be seven or eight contracts covered by a fans’ initiative."

Mr Holt said the share issue was a "completely separate thing", but added: "Where the money comes from doesn’t matter – to sustain where we are and take care of the deficit we need between £200,000 and £250,000."

He revealed MyFC members would face a vote on a share issue in the coming weeks and said he hoped it would allow 75 per cent stakeholder MyFC to release some of its equity.

Fleet will be looking to return to winning ways at Wrexham in Blue Square Premier on Saturday.