Chief executive Simon Clegg has revealed that talks are continuing with Senegalese defender Ibrahima Faye, who impressed during his recent trial with the club. Clegg was speaking after last night’s Supporters Club AGM at Portman Road where manager Roy Keane was a surprise special guest.
Keane revealed that the club would move for Faye last week and Clegg says negotiations continue: "Talks are still ongoing.”
Clegg says no other deals are currently being progressed: "What I’m now realising in this game is that things move very quickly. There’s nothing that we’re going to announce by the end of the week at this moment in time.”
Keane’s presence was a surprise to the 85 fans attending the meeting and Clegg says his attendance was deliberately kept under wraps: "Purposely we didn’t advertise it so we got the right people here, the people who came for the right reasons.”
The Town boss answered questions openly throughout, signing autographs and chatting with fans afterwards, and insisted that the Blues can still enjoy a good season, despite the poor start, although admitted that they had made things "very hard for ourselves”.
Keane says that new additions may now have to wait until January without completely ruling out possible new loan signings, particularly if other players leave on loan in the next few weeks, with the emergency window closing on November 26th.
The Town boss says he doesn’t want to have too big a squad with too many unhappy players, something he says happened during his time with Sunderland.
He dismissed a suggestion that the club’s location was a factor in some potential loan signings turning down a move to Town and said that very few players had actually refused the chance to join the Blues, certainly fewer than had been speculated in the press.
One player he had asked another manager about recently had turned the move down, but he had also discovered that the player, a Premier League reserve, was on £35,000-a-week, far more than anyone is earning at Town. That player may have been Hull City midfielder George Boateng, linked in the press earlier in the week.
Keane admitted that he isn’t surprised that Jordan Rhodes, controversially transferred to Huddersfield for £850,000 in the summer, is doing well in League One: "It was a chance I took after receiving an offer which was good for the club.”
He confirmed that the club would be "well provided for by sell-on clauses" if Rhodes subsequently moves on for big money and added that a player scoring in League One, as Kevin Lisbie has also been doing this season, is no guarantee that he’ll do the same in the Championship.
Keane added that Connor Wickham’s progress through from the academy, something which he sees as an important aspect of the club, was also a factor. He also feels the reserve team has a big part to play but says the level of football in the Totesport.com Football Combination is a disappointment, although he pointed out that Town lost their game at Watford the other night.
The Blues boss admitted that some of his summer signings have taken a while to settle in, naming Damien Delaney and Tamás Priskin amongst them, and admitted his side have "lacked experience at vital times”. Keane also felt his strikers should be more aggressive in the box.
He had praise for chief scout Steve McCall and said he was looking at improving the Town’s scouting network, as he was all other areas of the club. He said he remembered Sir Alex Ferguson saying it took him five years to get Manchester United’s scouting set-up as he wanted it.
Both Keane and Clegg said they have dealt with good and bad agents in their time, but Keane in particular felt the situation was better than it had been previously.
Keane dismissed summer newspaper claims that the Playford Road Training Centre had become a closed and unfriendly place and said fans are welcome to watch training sessions: "Anybody in this room can come along tomorrow.”
The manager himself doesn’t get involved in training matches, unlike his predecessor Jim Magilton. He says he did so once at Sunderland, lost and didn’t speak to anyone for a couple of days. Keane says he has made a conscious decision to step back.
The Blues boss said Jon Walters was enjoying the responsibility of being captain but felt it wasn’t hugely important to actually be the named skipper: "You don’t have to wear the armband to be a leader.”
Clegg was questioned about high ticket prices and said that the current structure was put in place after a great deal of thought and with the club conscious of the current financial situation.
Keane says owner Marcus Evans, who Clegg says has been a regular at Portman Road this season, was "one of the reasons I took this job” and that he has been "left alone [to get on with the job] and treated with respect” since joining Town.
Clegg said the club were reviewing their website and would make the necessary investment in this area at the right time.
Earlier in the evening, the business of the AGM had returned Elizabeth Edwards as the Supporters Club chair.