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Town Watch Levante - Ipswich Town News

Town sent a scout to watch Spanish side Levante's 1-1 home draw with Girona on Sunday, according to reports in Spain. Representatives of the Blues were previously spotted at the Estadio Ciudad de Valencia in January and May.

The Valencia-based club have undergone major financial turmoil over the last year and were relegated from La Liga last season. Legions of scouts watching their games looking for potential bargains has become the norm with Murcia, Real Sociedad, Salamanca, Alzira and NÃ stic de Tarragona all said to have been at Saturday's game along with the Blues.

Steve Foley, who has a flat in the city, was the man who attended the Valencia derby in May and may well have been Town's man at Sunday's game. The Blues' specialist skills coach also spent three spells monitoring training methods at Valencia CF last season with the clubs looking to forge an informal link. Fitness coach Simon Thadani recently made a similar visit.

A fortnight ago, Town chief executive Derek Bowden told TWTD that international scout Simon Hunt was then in Spain as the Blues look to make further additions to the squad in January: "The beauty of being able to invest a little bit more in scouting and bringing Simon Hunt on board is that he spends most of his time out of the country. In fact he's in Spain today looking at some games.

"He has an ongoing brief for the next couple of months and beyond to scout players on the continent and bring them here, whether they are young players on a year-long loan or a longer period, or older players coming on permanent deals.

"It's something which will develop over time. We did quite a lot in the summer and a little bit in January, but we've really only just begun in terms of scouting potential players across the continent because we haven't had the wherewithal to do it before. Now, with Simon and his network of scouts, we have, but it's not a sprint.”

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