NEWPORT County boss Justin Edinburgh has warned he might need to wield the axe in order to freshen up his playing squad in the winter transfer window.

The Exiles must wait just another month until trading in the Premier League and Football League resumes at the turn of the year.

January has traditionally been a time of frustration for the Exiles with a major star leaving for pastures new in each of the past four seasons, often derailing County’s campaign.

In 2011 the Exiles saw striker Craig Reid depart for Stevenage Borough and in 2012 another hero of Newport’s Conference South promotion side Danny Rose joined Fleetwood Town.

In January 2013 academy midfielder Lee Evans left for Wolverhampton Wanderers and last season it was striker Conor Washington who packed his bags, moving to London Road and joining Darren Ferguson at Peterborough United.

There is unlikely to be such interruption this winter and Edinburgh has expressed confidence that Newport will be able to complete a club record signing for goalkeeper Joe Day.

The 24-year old excelled for County during a 93-day emergency loan and the Exiles are understood to have agreed personal terms with the player, having received Peterborough’s permission to do so.

The clubs are now locked it talks over a payment structure with County keen to spread the sum for a player who is out of contract at the end of the season.

However, once the Day deal is completed, the Exiles will again be close to their budget capacity for the campaign, even with the retirement of defender Byron Anthony.

The Exiles haven’t had large enough crowds to re-evaluate their initial expectations for wage capacity and Edinburgh is now ready to ponder whether any players can be moved out.

Striker Shaun Jeffers was a big success at Brackley on loan and having scored the winner at Carlisle last weekend, is likely to remain at Rodney Parade to provide competition to Chris Zebroski, Rene Howe and November’s League Two player of the month Aaron O’Connor.

However, question marks remain over Danny Crow and Christian Jolley while youngster Joe Parker has also barely featured this term.

County are also likely to find themselves with a surplus of goalkeepers, should the Day deal go through.

And Edinburgh admits it’s likely he will have to let some players leave this winter but admits it is a different scenario to that of previous years.

“"We may look to shuffle the pack again as we did when a few boys went out on loan, because there are players that may need to go out to get football,” Edinburgh said.

“If the boys aren’t getting game time here, at the very least we will try and get them a few games somewhere else, because that is mutually beneficial as we’ve seen with someone like Shaun Jeffers who has come back flying.

"We will have a few chats with a few players and see how they are feeling and what they want to do.

There may be players that feel they want to move on from the club. But we'll assess that once the window opens and see if there is anything to be done.

“Because aside from trying to get Joe Day here, we won’t do much unless players go out the other way.”