West Ham United have reined in their spending on players after the excesses of the previous two transfer windows. The club have told Alan Curbishley, the manager, that he may be allowed to sign only one target this month and have put on hold contract talks with several first-team players.

Lucas Neill, Dean Ashton and Matthew Etherington are among the players who have been in talks about extending their deals. Neill, the captain, has been seeking parity in salary with some of the players signed in the summer, who are earning about £75,000 a week. He has 18 months left on his contract.

Etherington, the midfield player, remains in talks, but the club would prefer to wait for Ashton to return to fitness before extending his deal, which has 2½ years left.

The club spent about £18 million at this time last season and, although their net spending of £10 million was relatively small, some of the wages that they offered were considerably higher than those earned by players already at the club. Craig Bellamy, Kieron Dyer, Scott Parker and Fredrik Ljungberg were all given about £75,000 a week when they joined in the summer. Robert Green and Mark Noble had their salaries increased recently, and other players had deals extended to protect their value.

Ashton looked sharp when he regained fitness from a broken ankle this season, scoring three times. A knee injury forced him to withdraw from the England squad that played Estonia and Russia in October.

But the forward has been on the substitutes’ bench for the past two matches, against Manchester United and Arsenal, when Curbishley wanted his team to be solid defensively and changed to a 4-5-1 system. The manager used the same tactical system against Chelsea, when they lost 1-0. In each case, Carlton Cole led the line. “We wanted to keep it tight,” Curbishley said. “Carlton Cole is suited best to the lone striker’s role. There’s a lot of work to be done when you’re playing that role.

“Obviously people want to play every game but he played 3½ games over the Christmas period. I changed it for the Manchester United game and perhaps, had we not been playing another top-four team, I might have changed it around a bit.”

Curbishley also hinted that he would use the 4-5-1 system in future, meaning no starting place for Ashton when West Ham play the bigger sides. The forward has scored twice since returning from the knee injury. “Playing against the best teams, you have to do certain things tactically,” Curbishley said. “I spoke to Dean before the United game and he understood it. He probably felt a bit tired anyway and I explained what we were trying to do. There are no problems, we want to get the results and then we’ll worry about individuals.”