Town boss Roy Keane hopes to sign a new goalkeeper as a replacement for the retiring Shane Supple later today. The new addition looks likely to be a loan or short-term signing with Bohemians keeper Brian Murphy set to join the Blues in November.
There appears to have been no move to hasten Murphy’s switch from the League of Ireland club, which will see him move to Portman Road at the end of the Irish season in November but not be available to play until the transfer window reopens in January.
Keane hopes to have the new man in his squad for Saturday’s live Sky game at West Brom: "We’ll probably have news on a new goalkeeper later today. We certainly need cover, we’ve only got young Irish keeper Ian McLoughlin, who played for the reserves the other day, so we’ll certainly have to get something sorted out by this afternoon.
"There’s a lot of keepers out there available, who have maybe not have been fixed up by clubs, and we’ll hopefully get that sorted later today.”
Keane says Shane Supple only told him he wanted to quit football earlier this week: "I spoke with Shane on Wednesday morning, he came and told me of his decision. Obviously I was surprised. I’ve found him to be an excellent lad, a really good pro who trained well.
"He gave me his reasons. I’m disappointed, but we’ve got to respect the boy’s decision. I think it was brave of him. A lot of people go through life doing something they don’t necessarily want to do and he’s been brave enough to say that football’s not for him. He said he’d been thinking about it for a year or two.
"I think he’ll do well whatever he decides to do because he’s an intelligent boy and everyone from Ipswich wishes him well.”
Keane says that the former Irish U21 keeper would be welcome back at Portman Road if changed his mind and understood that going to university was very much in Supple’s thoughts. It’s well known that the Dubliner has a strong interest in cookery with speculation this morning suggesting that Supple may look in that direction for his future career.
The Town boss says he is looking to make further additions to his squad before the transfer window closes in just over a week’s time: "I hope so, but we’ll have to see what players might be available, the price that’s involved, the wages and obviously I’ll sit down with the chief executive and speak to the owner.
"I need to wheel and deal like every other manager. There’s not millions to be spent, whether we’re looking at loan players or young players who mightn’t be on unbelievable wages.
"We’re weighing up all our options at the moment, but we certainly don’t want to panic due to one or two of our results not going our way and bring four or five players in.
"I’m hoping that in the next week or so there might be one or two players, strong characters coming into the club.”
Keane appeared to rule out Daryl Murphy joining the club despite Sunderland manager Steve Bruce revealing that talks were ongoing earlier in the week: "I speak to Brucey on a regular basis on lots of stuff, but I wouldn’t imagine anything happening with that one.”
The Blues boss also played down the chances of Giovani Dos Santos re-signing on loan: "Very, very, very slim, I would have thought. Very slim.”
Keane says there has been no new interest in current members of his squad, while he confirmed that he had received a letter from the FA asking him to explain his comments regarding referee Keith Hill prior to Tuesday’s game with Crystal Palace, but is not facing any charge.