Boss Paul Jewell saw League One Huddersfield Town in action for the second time in a week when he took in their 1-1 away draw against the MK Dons on Saturday afternoon. Elsewhere, one of this morning’s tabloids reports that the Blues manager has also been monitoring Preston striker Jamie Proctor.

After watching the Terriers beat Sheffield United 3-0 at Bramall Lane on Tuesday, Jewell admitted that he had attended with particular potential recruits in his thoughts: “I was looking at specific targets at that one. I went to have a look at a couple of players, maybe not just for this season but maybe looking for the future.”

Blades Matt Lowton, Ched Evans and Stephen Quinn have all previously been linked with Town but none of the players in action for Huddersfield in either game has been mentioned in connection with the Blues before.

MK Dons full-back Adam Smith, who is on loan from Spurs, was someone Town are understood to have approached early in the summer.

Jewell watching the Terriers, with coach Sean McCarthy joining him yesterday, is likely to lead to speculation that former Blue Jordan Rhodes was his target, but the Scotland U21 international frontman was an unused sub against the Dons and came on in the 71st minute at Bramall Lane.

The 21-year-old was one of a number of ex-Town players involved in yesterday’s game with Alan Lee starting for Huddersfield, Gary Roberts coming off their bench and keeper Nick Colgan also amongst the Terriers’ subs.

Dean Bowditch played the full 90 minutes for the home side, while their sub keeper was Irishman Ian McLoughlin, who was released by the Blues in the summer.

Jewell is clearly a fan of Lee Clark’s side, who took their league unbeaten run to a 34 matches at stadium:mk, which is a record outside the top flight.

Speaking on Friday, the Blues boss said Town need to emulate Huddersfield’s winning mentality: “I watched a game the other night and one of the teams hadn’t lost for 33 games and they never looked for one minute like they would lose.

“Without ever being brilliant, they just had that look about them which said that they weren’t going to lose, and that comes from winning games.”

Meanwhile, one of this morning’s tabloids claims Jewell has also been keeping his eye on Preston striker Jamie Proctor, a player he is said to view as a potential new Connor Wickham.

The 19-year-old 6ft 2in tall frontman has become a regular starter for his hometown club this season, scoring two goals in seven appearances, having broken into the side as a sub in the second half of the last campaign when he came off the bench six times.

Proctor, who netted his only goal of 2010/11 at Watford on the final day, was the player who replaced one-time Blues target Keith Treacy after half an hour of the Lilywhites’ game at Portman Road in April.

Earlier that season, Proctor, who is described as quick and powerful, had spent time on loan at Stockport in League Two, making four starts and three sub appearances without scoring.

Handed Preston’s number nine shirt at the beginning of the season, Proctor, a team-mate of Town striker Nathan Ellington last season, is contracted to the League One side until June next year and very much appears to be the type of “young, vibrant, hungry” player Jewell has said he is currently eyeing not just for this season but for future campaigns.

Photo: Action Images

Ebantiass added 10:28 - Sep 18 Not names I was aware of but we do need a manager with long term plans and good connections in the game.Jewell seems to have that.
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PimsOclock added 10:34 - Sep 18 Jordan Rhodes an unused sub? But I've been reading the TWTD message board for years and I was led to believe he was better than Rooney, Messi and Pele combined! Now I don't know what to believe in!
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truebluesince1992 added 10:37 - Sep 18 Proctor missed a sitter at portman toad last year but did hold the ball up well and looked good with ball at his feet. Here comes the but he won't get many goals not as good as murphy and why for the life of me have we not got a right back yet it's beyond a joke now PJ sort the right back out or it won't matter if we get messi up front all the goals we let in. Make bullard captin aswel get them talking out there

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Mark added 10:40 - Sep 18 I suppose Jewell has completed phase 1 of his management at Ipswich which was to halt our slide to relegation last season, phase 2 has been to assemble a side for 2011/12 dealing with the loss of McAuley, Norris and Wickham whilst trying to improve on a modest budget meaning some older players joined...now onto phase 3 which is about finding the younger players from the lower leagues to build a long-term future for Ipswich.

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DutchTownFan added 11:35 - Sep 18 Hope we get a good RB on loan soon with a view to signing perm in jan. Lowton sounds nice and I think it's good that we're looking at younger players as I think we've reached the maximum amount of older players we should have in the squad. A decent RB will be the last puzzlepiece in a team that looks as though it should do very well in the championship. Murphy Chopra Martin Bullard Andrews Jet Cresswell Collins Ingy NewRB Stockdale Subs: Lee Barrett (or possibly Stech), Sonko, Bowyer, Carson, Scotland.

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TractorMan added 11:39 - Sep 18 Phil - Sheff Utd player could be this one - certainly one for the future http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/14889784.stm Sounds like a player fitting Jewells description of young, hungry players?
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Tractamatt added 11:45 - Sep 18 I was expecting news about stech the decision was due to be made yesterday , was webster there with him discussing it during the game?
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Lombokblue added 11:50 - Sep 18 just need a couple more players. I think we've been saying that for the last 5 years. We've run out of new players to sign so now we're looking at bringing back our young players who we sold to make space for the couple of players we bought two seasons ago and we've now sold. Drury, What was that about.
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tractorboybig added 12:08 - Sep 18 Mark are you suggesting that we are not sliding into relegation? If we dont beat Coventry then we are in a relegation fight, which leads me to conclude that PJ has done nothing at this club at all. I would also suggest that the signings and wages he has shelled out for this season are a bit more than modest.
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HARRY10 added 12:24 - Sep 18 "whilst trying to improve on a modest budget " Yes, £8m from the sale of Wickham is modest In reality - Stage 1 - remove Keane's costly failures to get the wage bill down Stage 2 - replace costly failures with cheaper, aged failures Stage 3 - league 3
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jas0999 added 13:30 - Sep 18 Great! At last - not has been injury prone freebies, but actually some promosing targets that more importantly will help in building for the future. All these has beens and loans will put us back to square one next Summer - if of course these players care enough to keep us in the league - which is debatable at the moment. Agree with some other posts - critical match for PJ tomorrow. We HAVE to beat Coventry - and even though it won't even come close to making up for 8 defeats in 11 - including many many thrashings, it will at least move us away from the relegation zone, where hopefully we can build and push on. But please NO MORE LOANS!

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Keaneish added 13:48 - Sep 18 Ssshhh Harry10. Rubbish post, boring and what the hell is league 3 and how can you call Bullard, Bowyer and Andrews, Ingimarsson failures!?
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StanwayBlue added 14:27 - Sep 18 Perhaps some of the moaning "expert managers" on here might begin to realise that PJ is building a platform for the future. We are stabilising this year with some wise old heads who he can gradually replace with youngsters. No instant gratification but more exciting. On the subject of "old" players AC Milan haven't done / don't do badly with a team based on over 30's!!

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itfc1981 added 15:20 - Sep 18 Please God buy back Rhodes! Worst mistake this club has made in years selling him.
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ITFCMonk added 16:53 - Sep 18 why not snap up jordan rhodes!
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BlueBadger added 17:05 - Sep 18 Can he play at right back?
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h32 added 17:11 - Sep 18 StanwayBlue - more like building a skidpan into League 1 - unless we get a win against Coventry we are ALREADY in a relegation situation. And don't give me the old c#ap about early days, x amount of games still to play, oh and of course time needed for the team to GEL (must not forget that) etc; etc; etc; - heard it all before and all they are - are blatant EXCUSES from born LOSERS.

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dommyboyblue added 17:48 - Sep 18 Relegation situation? It's only September! My god how negative can you be, if we are in this situation come closer to christmas then yes I will accept relegation situation comments without fuss but come on H32, cheer up, it really is not that bad. Good to see we are looking around for young talent but we need to be focusing on a win on Monday! COYB.
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Pip50 added 18:14 - Sep 18 Dummy boy look at the table and the videos of the dross served up over the last month.
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Stu_Magoo added 18:23 - Sep 18 Some of our supporters are right whoppers!
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StochesStotasBlewe added 19:18 - Sep 18 StanwayBlue. Good post. The voice of reason again.
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suffolkpunchdrunk added 19:58 - Sep 18 PJ keeping an eye on Jamie Proctor - is that a proctal examination? Sorry! Taxi!
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HARRY10 added 22:26 - Sep 18 'Perhaps some of the moaning "expert managers" on here might begin to realise that PJ is building a platform for the future' By selling off our brightest prospect ? By leaving us with one decent keeper who can leave at 24 hours notice ? By bringing in Drury who was never up to it ? Jewell has had nearly nine months to start to build that platform, yet here we are still with excuses about not knowing the right formula, now coupled with constant talk about his scouting missions. Why wasn't he doing those before, not after the transfer window closed ? If he doesn't know the right formula after bringing in at least eleven players (enough to make up a whole team) then what does it say about his platform building skills ? It is coming up to four years since Marcus Evans took over. Far from moving forward or mounting any serious promotion challenge we have steadily slipped backwards. Fine, tell us that without him we would be bust, but don't try and tell us that his ownership has amounted to anything more. It hasn't.

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dommyboyblue added 07:49 - Sep 19 Pip 50 - I am just saying lets see where we are by christmas, I personally am not expecting us to go up this year as we are rebuilding the team from the Keane, but we have some established players in and I am never one for pressing the massive red panic button. It will be fine,starting with a win tonight (in the hope we do not play 4 central midfielders across the midfield) ever the optimist that I am.

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DiamondGezzer added 08:03 - Sep 19 At least he doesn't sit on his backside, he's out there trying to make something happen.
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