HIBS manager Lee Johnson concedes he needs to trim his squad because he has too many players.
The club have 27 players listed under their first team section on the website, while Christian Doidge and Daniel McKay are out on loan.
Johnson would prefer to be working with a number closer to 23.
The former Bristol City boss is bracing himself for some unhappy players in the weeks to come, particularly with his injury list showing signs of improvement.
Kyle Magennis returned from a year-long lay-off last week and Elias Melkersen, Rocky Bushiri and Demi Mitchell are all back available.
Johnson said: “When you get a lot of 20-25 year olds with experience, like we’ve got, it does become tricky to manage those guys .
“They have the experience and they have the desire to play and the hunger to pay and they are their agents’ golden pay cheque so they are on the phone every five minutes.
“But they are probably not as mature as the senior players so they don’t always understand and sometimes they feel victimised so clear communication early and having an open door policy, not lying to your players and making sure that there is clarity and emotional stability on where they stand at that point, that is really big and going forward.
“I think we need to reduce the squad and over the next couple of windows the aim is to do that and increase the quality.
“But it is better to start from that position of being slightly swollen because then we can use the budget well and move people out and move people in.”
Asked if he would be looking to move players on in January if they do not impress, Johnson said: “It is not easy being a footballer because you do have that psychological battle all the time.
“Sometimes you are doing fantastically-well in training but somebody else has the shirt and the team is winning.
“There are also external factors and you are having explain to your parents, your mates, your partner, that you are not in the team and your agent is thinking ‘well, if he’s not in the team, I need to look at this because I need to put food on my kids’ table so I need to move him.’
“There are so many factors and when you have 27/28 players and maybe only eight or nine are regulars, you do the math. It’s not easy. You end up bored and not having the carrot at the end of the week and that hampers your progression.”
Johnson, meanwhile, insists he is already planning for the arrival of VAR in Scottish football by introducing scenarios in training that could be similar to when footage is reviewed during games, including offside drills.
And he wants owner Ron Gordon to invest in a huge pitchside television at the club’s training base near Tranent.
VAR is set to be brought in after the World Cup break although there are some suggestions it could happen sooner.
Johnson added: “You’ve got the added dynamic of potentially VAR coming in and that could be just around the corner; we don’t fully know yet, we haven’t had the heads up.
“I think that’s quite a big adjustment halfway through the season and that’s a bit concerning for me. It’s a realm I don’t know, I haven’t experienced it before.
“How you coach, how you work, how you defend, how you block shots all come into consideration because the eye in the sky could nab you.
“We’re already working with VAR in training, if it’s an offside. We train with our coaching staff as linesmen and we let the move finish before deciding whether to bring it back for offside.
“We’ve got some cameras being set up over the next couple of weeks and my aim is to go to the big man (Gordon) and ask for a pitchside TV as well because then we can start using VAR in our training sessions to get used to it.
“At Bristol City I was one of the first in the EFL to have a big screen pitchside for training and it was fantastic the way we used it, it really aided our retention of information.”
