TRANMERE have opened negotiations with young home-grown prospects Aaron Cresswell and Dale Jennings about extending their contracts at Prenton Park.

Cresswell, 21, who has established himself as Rovers first choice left back this season, has less than six months of his current deal to run.

Jennings, 18, signed his first professional deal in October after making a spectacular breakthrough into the first-team football. The arrangement runs until June 2012 but the value of Jennings’ services are up for discussion as a clutch of Premier League and Championship clubs monitor his progress, fuelling transfer speculation.

Manager Les Parry revealed last week that Rovers are talking to Ian Thomas-Moore about the possibility of extending the experienced striker’s current contract, which is due to expire in the summer.

However, Rovers reluctance to offer new terms now to Marlon Broomes prompted the well travelled centre-back to make a transfer request, which was granted by Parry over the weekend.

Parry said: “The process of planning for next season has already started here. We are speaking at the moment to Aaron Cresswell and we were speaking to Dale Jennings to see if he wants to extend his contract.”

Thomas-Moore’s father Ronnie Moore, the Rotherham United manager, made an unsuccessful attempt to prise the player away from Prenton Park at the start of the season.

Ronnie Moore said last week that he was still interested in recruiting Thomas-Moore for the Millers. If Thomas-Moore does not negotiate a new deal with Tranmere, he will be clear to join his father as a free agent in the summer.

Broomes, 33, has played only a handful of games for Tranmere this season after suffering a succession of injuries and will be out of contract in June.

Parry said: “Players in the last year of their contracts, especially older players, don’t want to be thrown into the melting pot at the end of the season, when hundreds of players are released by league clubs.

“That’s the concern with Marlon. He wants to secure a long-term contract before the end of the season because he does not want to be looking for a club with hundreds of others in the summer, or to be going places on trial.”

Broomes, who missed Tranmere’s 2-0 defeat at MK Dons last weekend with a calf injury, is hoping to return to training and put himself in contention for the League One game against Southampton at Prenton Park on Saturday.

Frenchman Zoumana Bakayogo looks likely to miss the Southampton game after sustaining a cut in the top of his left foot that required for stitches after the MK Dons game.

Meanwhile Parry is ready to take issue with football’s disciplinary officialdom in an attempt to clear the name of midfielder Joss Labadie.

Parry will be asking the referee’s assessor at the MK Dons game to examine the incident which saw Labadie booked for “simulation” or diving.

Regulations offer little prospect of the caution being overturned. However, Parry feels strongly that referee Kevin Wright got the decision wrong, that the punishment of the yellow card effectively labels Labadie a cheat and the player deserves an apology.

Parry said: “When a referee books a player for diving, he’s calling him a cheat. If I, as a manager, use that term I would end up in London with an almighty charge hanging over me and I would have to answer it.

“So we will be asking the assessor to look at the incident with Joss. The lad (who made the tackle) took Joss out yet the referee has called Joss cheat by giving him a yellow card.

“I’m not blaming the referee, we all make mistakes. But the booking goes down on Joss’s record and diminishes his reputation. Other referees look at players’ records and they will see that in the MK Dons game, Joss was booked for diving. That will be in their minds and there is nothing we can do about it.”

Parry added: “I don’t do these things likely. I’ve asked other people to look at this and get their point of view and to make sure my facts are right.

“I don’t think we can do anything about overturning the booking but at least the officials can send Joss an apology for booking him for diving and calling him a cheat when he wasn’t.”