Town chief executive Simon Clegg has confirmed that manager Paul Jewell will be given money to spend during the transfer window as he looks to add around six additions to his squad, but says there is no hard and fast set budget. Clegg hints that on-loan Celtic man Daryl Murphy could still return to Portman Road for 2012/13.

The Blues chief says that as in previous windows each deal will be taken on its own merits rather than Jewell being handed a pre-agreed sum to spend: “There’s not a figure on it. Exactly the same as last season, for the right players, the right money will be available.”

Last week Jewell said he expected signing loanee Daryl Murphy on a permanent basis to be beyond Town’s means, however, Clegg isn’t quite so negative about the possibility of doing a deal with Celtic: “Let’s see where we get to. It’s fairly early days. I think Celtic will be taking a view on it and see where they go.”

The SPL champions currently want a fee for the Irishman, who has a year remaining on his lucrative contract at Parkhead.

Jewell believes that big fees will be rare in the Championship this summer but says money will be there as and when he wants to spend it: “We are looking for bargains. There definitely won’t be any £3 million signings.

“If I went to Marcus and said a player of that price would make the difference I am sure he would back me, but there won’t be too many big money moves in the Championship. Not when I hear there are 13 clubs in this league on the brink of administration.”

Clegg says owner Evans remains as committed to the club and taking the Blues back into the Premier League as he was when he took over in December 2007: “His enthusiasm hasn’t waned one iota since he bought the club.”

The Town chief says that unlike former chairman David Sheepshanks, who famously worked to a five-year plan, he’s not keen on putting a timescale on returning to the top flight: “I think it’s a very dangerous situation to put a timetable on achieving the goal that we’re after.

“There are 23 other clubs in the Championship who all aspire to the same goal with differing degrees of financial robustness and owners with different depths of pockets and different ambitions.

“What other clubs do you can’t control. What we’re trying to do is find that winning model for this football club. I don’t think you’ve ever heard me put any time frame on reaching that aspirational goal, apart from that we want to do it at the earliest opportunity.”

Elsewhere, former Blue Ed Upson has signed a new two-year deal with Yeovil Town. Upson, 22, was the scorer of the winning goal in Ipswich’s 2005 FA Youth Cup final victory over Southampton.

Photo: Action Images

Photo: Action Images

4EverWatchingBlue added 12:57 - May 7 Don't want murphy to return he's too predictable need someone with abit of flair and goals in them.
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WeirdFishes added 13:01 - May 7 IPSWICH ARE BETTER THAN EVERYBODY
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WeirdFishes added 13:02 - May 7 sorry phillip
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irishtim added 13:10 - May 7 Murphy on loan or on a free would be good. We should look at Gary Twigg of shamrock rovers knows where the net is. Whether he can step up ? worth giving trial to scores 20 odd a season in league of ireland maybe the next k doyle or s long. Worth a look imo.
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casanovacrow added 13:18 - May 7 Murphy is an huge expense with only his size to offer. Look elsewhere. Use the saved wages wiser. We weren't good enough this season so why spend money bringing back the players who weren't good enough last season? As much as I appreciate that we are on a budget, the tone of what I keep hearing is worrying. If a player is worth bothering with he will command a fairly large fee, its just logical. Those who are on bosmans etc tend to have agents who use the lack of a transfer fee to up wages especially as there are going to be loads of teams after the same players so it's not as much of a cheaper option as people tend to think. A Cressy is a rare occurance, you cant hope to find 6 of him in the summer, 5 out of 6 will be huge flops and we'll be heading for relegation fast. Our team isn't good enough to get any higher in the table, we cant expect better results without paying good money for good players when we need so many. There are ways around the financial fair play rules, I am sure Evans with his shady business history is aware of them. If he wanted to spend more money he'd find a way. Just sponsoring players/stadia/rebrand the portman pie to the marcus evans portman pie himself for stupid money etc will allow more money to be spent. I'm not deliberately being negative but the signs are there, we are in a relegation fight next season.

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irishtim added 13:21 - May 7 casanovacrow. cheer up mate. still think if we get murph on our terms its a good deal. If wages too then i agree move on.
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Lightningboy added 13:21 - May 7 Murphy's proven over 2 loan spells that he's not really worth signing on a permanent deal..surely our "scouting network" can find better? Spend the £££'s wisely PJ.
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alztar added 13:24 - May 7 Why can we not put a time-scale on getting back to the prem??? No one at this club seems to have any ambition, and I'm a bloody optimistic fan!
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TimmyH added 13:27 - May 7 About 5 new signings is about right to me, we don't want too many new faces and it is good we have 'some' money to spend, be shrewd with it - if we can get Ward from Portsmouth I don't think that will cost the earth, Lewis would be good as GK and possibly a solid CB is a must and maybe this is where the money should go. Another attacking option also is needed (from a lower league club?).

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TownOnTheUp added 13:27 - May 7 Am I the only one who's irritated at there being no set budget? By all means, don't tell everyone what it is, but it's ridiculous. How hard does this make Jewell's job if he has to identify a player, sound out how much he's going for, and do all the build up, before he has to go to Evans and say "Look, I need £1.5million for this player", at which point Evans says "No" and all that time is wasted. In my opinion, I'd rather they said "Jewell, we have faith in you, here's your transfer budget, here's your wage budget, get to it".

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walberswick added 13:28 - May 7 “We are looking in the bargain bin. There definitely won't be any £1+ million signings."
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Pessimistic added 13:30 - May 7 Murhpy was o.k. but not much more than that so I don't see the need to bargain to hard for his services again.
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Garv added 13:35 - May 7 I think we'd do well to find a suitable replacement for Murphy. His best attribute is his crossing, the problem was there was never anyone gambling to get on the end of it (Chopra joke in there somewhere). Buy a tall, mobile striker and Murphy's assists could start to pile up. Wickham could be that striker, if not someone like Madine from Wednesday.
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blue_oyster added 13:39 - May 7 Money to spend, eh? He could buy himself a new whistle for starters.
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ipswich134 added 13:56 - May 7 I thinks if we find a young player like jet then I think they would splash the odd million pound.
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Keaneish added 13:57 - May 7 I'd rather another to Murphy in all fairness. He's done well at times but i think we could use the money more wisely.
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jim442 added 14:06 - May 7 I'd far rather see Carson or JET on the left. Garv if your so keen on having Murphy in the team maybe he's the tall not so mobile striker your looking for. He was better up front first time round than he has been ambling up and down the left this season. Admittedly Carson and JET are both unpredictable but we already have them here and they have a bit of pace when they can be bothered to use it.

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dirtydingusmagee added 14:10 - May 7 ahhhhhh Lightningboy ,think you may have hit on something ,we need a scouting network !.
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groovyASH added 14:14 - May 7 Nobody will leave Sheffield Wednesday for Ipswich; they'll look at Norwich and Southampton and believe they have better prospects staying put. And who would blame them? I'd rather take a look at the 3 teams who lose out in league 1 play-offs; Sheffield Utd, MK Dons, Huddesfield and Stevenage. 3 of those 4 teams will be in league 1 next season and they've all got good players in there. To a lesser extent we should look at the players of those teams who've got promoted from League 2 too. We need players who are used to winning, who have confidence in their abilities, and who can bring that confidence and enthuiasm and spread it amongst our current crop of players. Obviously talent is important too, talent and confidence would be perfect.

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Mutiny added 14:14 - May 7 So all change again - expect that most of the signings will be duds, just like the last few years since Evans, Clegg and laterly Jewell arrived on the scene - no long term plan, just wishful thinking that signing the usual batch of misfits will mean success. Lucky old Norwich - long term strategy, decent manager, realistic board, tight budget contraints.
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MattinLondon added 14:20 - May 7 I would've thought that as a club we would look overseas for value for money signings. We have had over a season to scout for potential signings...hopefully a few surprises will be in store rather than the 'everyone is after the same players' rubbish excuse. Heres to a promotion winning season.
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irishtim added 14:33 - May 7 Check Gary Twigg
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SamWhiteUK added 14:42 - May 7 alexharban, do you have to put that on every article?
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Guthrum added 14:58 - May 7 Rather interested by this comment: "... when I hear there are 13 clubs in this league on the brink of administration." That's quite a lot, even if he means the entire Football League.
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jas0999 added 15:08 - May 7 Murphy is clearly on mega money - he was at a PL club when sold to Scottish giants Celtic. We should not pay over the odds for him. Don't get me wrong - thought Murphy did a decent job - but I still think we can do better for half the outlay. Just hope PJ has a better plan in place this Summer. PJ himself admits failure last pre-season + the lack of a Plan B - whilst his recruitment strategy was frankly unacceptable. We will now finally find out if PJ has learnt his lesson.

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