Boss Roy Keane has dismissed claims that midfielder Colin Healy is close to sealing a New Year loan move to Hartlepool United, but says he has received interest from a number of clubs regarding the former Cork City man. The Town manager says he has identified the players he wants to target in January and has started speaking to managers about them.
Keane says he’s yet to speak to Healy, who has rarely featured since signing in the summer, about his immediate future: ”I’ve not spoken to Colin yet, but there have been one or two phone calls regarding him.
"He played a reserve game during the week and was probably the best player on the park.
"Colin’s a good player, he came into the team when we were struggling and we’ll definitely look at that in the next few weeks.”
Healy is one of a number of squad members impressing in training and in the reserves who Keane feels need first team football: "I’ve lots of players and I want to be fair to them and there are lads in the background who are training extremely well, very, very good players, and they need some games.
”We’ve had enquiries for some of our players and I’d expect something to happen. I’d be very surprised if it didn’t, because if anyone looked at our players, especially those who haven’t been getting a game recently, they deserve to be playing in the Championship or another league, so we’ll see what happens.
"The bottom line is that they are footballers and they need to play. I think my squad is probably too big at the moment and that is a slight concern.”
Keane confirmed that he has already identified his transfer window targets but refused to elaborate too much further: "We’ll look at things in January in terms of one or two coming in and maybe one or two going and we want to have a better second half of the season than we have the first.”
The Town manager says he has started tentative talks with other bosses: "One or phone calls, that’s about it. That’s what happens, I make a few calls, I receive a few calls, have a few chats with different managers. I suppose there are a few little games going on, as you’d expect.”
One of Friday’s tabloids linked Town with a £2.5 million move for Derby striker Rob Hulse, but Rams boss Nigel Clough says he is yet to talk to any other club about any of his squad: "I've not spoken to any other manager about our players, which is how we like it.
"I expect one or two calls in January and there have already been one or two reports in the papers which seem to be pretty wide of the mark."
Before January gets under way, Keane says he will address whether to keep Stern John and Jack Colback, who are on loan from Crystal Palace and Sunderland respectively, and Arran Lee-Barrett, whose contract is up in January: "We’ll certainly have to look at that over the next week. Stern’s done fairly well for us and has been unlucky not to score one or two. He scored against Peterborough but obviously that was disallowed.
"Jack’s a very good player and I spoke to Steve Bruce about him yesterday and we’re hopeful we can do deals because the boys have done well.
"Obviously we’ve got Arran’s contract coming up in January, so we have got things to look at and I’ll do that after the Scunthorpe match because that’s the priority.”
Lee-Barrett looks set to be offered terms to take him to the end of the season, having impressed Keane since he has been at Portman Road.
Meanwhile, American trialist Devann Yao, who has been offered terms by the Blues, could be set for trials at other clubs. At least two other sides are interested in taking a look at the 19-year-old, who is still at Playford Road at present.
Town are currently negotiating compensation with some of the clubs Yao was with as a youth player. The New Yorker spent three years with French side Metz, six months each with Italian sides Livorno and Pisa and a brief spell in Scotland with St Mirren.