Town manager Joe Royle has vowed to ask chairman David Sheepshanks if the club's finances will allow him to bring in new players after the Blues fell to a poor 1-0 defeat at Wigan.

Royle, for the first time sounding less confident about the season ahead, felt his side missed the senior players who have departed over the last year: "Tonight showed just how much we have missed the players that have gone.

"We didn't deserve anything and if we had got anything it would merely have papered over the cracks.

"Full credit to Wigan, they fully deserved the victory as they had more energy in all positions than us.

"We restricted them to one goal but we can't hope for clean sheets for the rest of the season. I will be speaking to the chairman to see if new faces can be brought in."

With finances still tight at Portman Road it is likely that Royle will be looking at loan signings rather than any permanent deals.

Wigan boss Paul Jewell felt his side had put in a fine display: "That's probably the best football the Wigan public have seen for a long time.

"It was high-tempo exciting stuff for the whole 90 minutes and I think it showed that we deserve to be in the First Division.

"It gave me a lot of pleasure to watch that and we are improving as we are going along. We are not getting carried away but this was a top class performance."

Photo: Action Images

Ipswich Town Polls