DUMBARTON’S head of recruitment Stuart Millar has admitted the club have signed too many players this season and plans are in place for a more settled squad should Sons remain in the Championship next term.

Since Stevie Aitken took over in the summer, Sons have signed 22 players with seven having already left the club.

Millar conceded that was too many and some players hadn’t worked out as expected. But he insists the club will have a more stable squad next season providing they beat the drop.

He also revealed the deal to keep Jamie Lindsay on loan from Celtic in January hampered the club’s signing plans as it cost Sons an extra loan due to an error from Celtic’s side.

Millar said: “Myself, the manager and the coaching staff have had a chat about it and we need to calm down a bit next season.

“I think too many players have come in, we need to have a more settled squad. When a new manager comes in there is usually a turnaround in players.

“There was certain players the manager didn’t fancy, there are certain players that chose to move on.

“Jamie Lindsay has cost us two loans, that restricted our loan deals because we’re only allowed so many. We had to sign him until January at the request of Celtic, we could’ve extended it which we wanted to do.

“But Celtic allowed it to expire. By the time they got round to it, the contract had expired and we had to use another loan. Celtic apologised to us.

“We need to have a firmer base to work from. We had to bring in 16 or 17 players in the summer and we can’t do that every year.”

Millar has been forced to shelve signing plans for next season while Sons’ league status remains uncertain.

However, he has drawn up a list of names for Aitken’s approval for all areas of the squad to prepare for both eventualities and revealed Sons may well target players from relegated Alloa and other rival clubs from this campaign.

He said: “It’s difficult because we don’t know what division we are going to be in. You can have two lists of players but more importantly we don’t know which players will remain at the club. We would hope that if we stay up, most players would stay.

“At this stage we’re keeping a bank of players for every position and both eventualities. There are players who we would like and I have recommended to Stevie.

“Without naming names, we have to look at players in our division at full-time clubs who maybe aren’t playing regularly.

“Or you look at Alloa who have been relegated, they have a number of good players who we could maybe attract here.”

There was encouraging news for Sons fans on a player already at the club. Jamie Lindsay has been a standout for Aitken this season and many, including Millar, had assumed Celtic would want him to go on loan to a full-time club next season.

However, Millar says Celtic have given him some encouragement that Lindsay could stay on at Sons next season.

He added: “I’ve already had a chat with Celtic about Jamie. I thought they would be keen to get him to a full-time club next season because of how well he has done.

“They said that wasn’t necessarily the case, he is enjoying where he is and he is playing every week. He is also still training with Celtic, which means he gets the best of both worlds in a sense – training full time and playing regular football. That suits Celtic to a tee.”