Town boss Roy Keane continues to work on landing his two loan signings and now hopes to add his targets to his squad during the international break which follows Saturday’s game at Barnsley.
Keane said: "I’ve spoken to one or two managers in the last couple of days and in defence of the managers I’ve spoken to, they’re busy people themselves and it’s easier said than done.
"Nothing’s going to be done today, but we’ve got two weeks to play with after tomorrow ,with the international break, and we’re hoping for possibly two players. But there’s a long way to go with these deals yet because the clubs we are speaking to would be fairly reluctant. We’ll wait and see.
"I know there’s money available, I spoke to the owner again earlier on during the week. I’ve said we before, we could have £100 million to spend, but it’s trying to get the right players in.”
Keane says the delays in deals can be caused by a number of factors: "Sometimes it might be the demands of the player, the position the club are in, how busy the manager I’m speaking to is. There are lots of reasons.
"I have to be to quite understanding of the position we’re in and, trust me, there might be players not keen to come to a team near the bottom of the Championship.
"I understand that, but hopefully one or two players that we’ll speaking to will instead of seeing that as a downside, will see it as a big plus to come to a team that’s struggling and where they can come and play their part. It would help us, it would help them and we’ll all be winners."
Skipper Alex Bruce will again miss out due to the groin injury he suffered in last week’s game at home to Newcastle but should be OK after the international week.
Connor Wickham, who has also been suffering with a groin problem, will come back into Keane’s plans, along with Damien Delaney and Colin Healy, who were left out of the 18 at Sheffield United.