Boss Roy Keane says no decision has yet been made on whether Crystal Palace striker Stern John will extend his spell with the Blues. The Town manager also confirmed that German keeper Jonas Sela had spent last week on trial at Playford Road, as first reported by TWTD yesterday, and revealed that he had received enquiries regarding members of his first team squad.
Keane says that contrary to reports in south London yesterday, a decision will be made on the Trinidadian after Saturday’s match: "I’ve not really spoken to Stern since the game the other night. Obviously he’s due to have his last game with us tomorrow, he’ll certainly be training with us today, he’ll be in the squad and we’ll wait and see.
"But we’ve not officially made any decision and things can change. If one or two of our other strikers leave, then Stern would certainly be staying.”
Keane says the situation with Palace going into administration doesn’t alter the position: "They’ll still have people running the club, they’ll still look for fees, loan fees or wages to be covered. Nothing has changed on that side of it.
"There’s been no change on the Stern situation. We’ll probably sleep on it over the next 24 hours and the first person we’ll inform will be Stern. We’ll let you know tomorrow night what we’re going to do.”
Keane says that with the transfer window closing on Monday, he has made enquiries for players and he has received interest from clubs for some of his squad: "It’s very quiet but there may be some action over the next few days. We still have until Monday.
"There are plenty of enquiries going on for players we might be interested in bringing to the club and we’ve had a few over the last few days for some of our lads. So it could be a busy few days.
"We’ve got a chief executive who has his eye on our money and I’ll step back from it over the weekend. Obviously if we get an opportunity to speak to the one or two players we’re interested in we’ve got Sunday and Monday to do that.”
The Blues boss says there has been interest in some of his senior players, potential moves which he has not ruled out: "The one or two players that might go out have very much been involved in the first team. We’ll inform the players if those enquiries are followed up.
"I got a phone call at half-eight from a manager last night which took me by surprise. I was very surprised. You don’t know what might happen.”
Keane says that every player has his price: "If a Premiership club offers me £5 million for one of my players I might consider it. You don’t know.
"Things change and a lot can happen over the weekend. There might be no enquiries. That manager rang me last night and asked if we could do something. The ball’s in his court. If he wants to make an offer, he’ll make an offer.”
Keane says German keeper Jonas Sela, who we reported was on trial yesterday, did well but is just one of a number of glovesmen to have been given a try-out: "He did OK. I’ve spoken to James Hollman. We need to look at our goalkeeping situation. He did reasonably well but I usually leave it up to the goalkeeping coach what he wants to do with them.
"We have goalkeepers coming in all the time, there are plenty of goalkeepers out there and we have no problem with them coming in.
"We’re still short of keepers with Brian Murphy out injured. We’re constantly looking at goalkeepers.”
Keane says that the deal to sign free agent 19-year-old American trialist Devann Yao is still not complete but could be done by Monday. The club have been working through red tape relating to compensation due to some of the clubs — Metz, Livorno, Pisa and St Mirren — that he was with as a youngster.
The Blues boss was impressed with his performance in the 0-0 reserves draw with Brentford on Wednesday: "He played the other day and he did very, very well but he’s still not officially signed for us.
"He’s a talented boy, he’s got a good attitude, good energy levels. He had a bleep test last week and considering he’s been out injured [with a bad cut to the calf] it was very, very good. He’s good at dealing with the ball, he’s aggressive. He’s a good player.
"He plays wide but like any decent wideman he come inside and he’s comfortable with the ball. We felt the boy deserved an opportunity at least until the end of the season and that contract will have to be sorted.”
Town have no new injuries but Brian Murphy is still out for around another week due to the ankle injury he suffered in the warm-up at Leicester. Skipper Jon Walters also misses out with his hamstring injury.