Town manager Roy Keane says he has heard nothing new from the various clubs interested in skipper Jon Walters. Stoke City are understood to be the frontrunners for the 26-year-old’s signature with QPR and other sides also interested.
Keane said: "It’s very quiet on that one. Thank God for that, though. I thought Jon was outstanding on Saturday. Some players can get affected by speculation, but the top people and the top players deal with all that nonsense.
"When you get out on that football pitch, you want to play, you want to run, you want to get stuck in and when Jon’s here as the captain of the team I know we’ve got a chance.
"Jon will be involved against Exeter as one of the senior players. Jon at the front in the tunnel brings a bit of comfort to me. I know we’ll be OK.”
The Blues boss says Walters won’t be going anywhere unless Town are offered the price they have in mind: "That goes for any player, Connor Wickham, Gareth McAuley, whoever it might be. We have a value on our players, and I think they are realistic values, we’re not playing silly buggers like other clubs.”
Keane expects further developments on Jon Stead’s situation soon, but says that while the striker is still at the club he will continue to be involved: "There might be news on that in the next few days, but Jon’s in my plans, Jon’s involved, he trained this morning.
"He spoke to clubs, but if a club comes in for any of our players and we agree a fee with them, then they can go and speak to them. There’s no harm.
"Jon went and spoke with Blackpool, I don’t know whether he met up with Bristol City, and he came back and he scored a goal for us. That’s a footballer’s career, a footballer’s life. Just because you get offers, it doesn’t mean you have to go.
"We saw on Saturday that he came on with a good attitude and a desire to do well, just like he did against Spurs on Tuesday night.
"When Jon came off the bench on Saturday it was no surprise he scored because he nearly scored five minutes before that. He’ll be involved on Tuesday night.”
The Town manager outlined where he feels his squad requires strengthening: "We need to bring a couple of attackers into the squad and we need another midfielder and certainly another defender. If we got another injury in our back four, like if Kennedy is out for a while, we’ll be in trouble. We’ve struggled at left-back anyway.
"Mark didn’t have too many minutes under his belt in pre-season and I know it’s easy to be clever after the event, but maybe we should have taken him off with 10 minutes to go, as that’s when he injured his hamstring.”
Keane is leaving the money side of potential signings to chief executive Simon Clegg and owner Marcus Evans, having reduced the wage bill by moving on the likes of Owen Garvan, Alex Bruce, Kevin Lisbie and Lee Martin: "I’ve done my part of the deal.
"It’s not up to me to negotiate with these agents and clubs. I think being the manager of a football club is pretty time-consuming anyway without me getting involved in that.
"Sometimes I do, sometimes I think I have to have my say in it, but if I speak to the player and feel that he wants to come to the club and I’m happy with the chat, then the people who do the number crunching have got to produce, because I think we produce on the other side.”
Keane feels that so far he has received the support he has been after from Town’s money men and is aware why deals take time to be completed: "I think so, but as you know, I can be quite impatient sometimes. However, we have to negotiate like every other club on the planet.
"Just because we’ve got all these injuries it doesn’t mean we’re suddenly going to be desperate and start giving people £15-£20,000 a week. It’s not going to work that way.
"I think as a manager you learn about manage your players but you’ve got to learn about the financial stuff of the club. I know we have been trying but we need to get the deals done, but I also know we need to get the right players in. We can’t bring a player in in the next few days and then regret it in two months’ time.”
Keane says the Blues pay relatively sensible wages at present and says the club knows from bitter experience not to pay over the odds: "We’ve got some good players here, they’re on decent wages, but to me they’re not ‘silly wages’. The club doesn’t want to go down that road because they did not many years ago when players came to the club on big, big money and didn’t try a leg. That’s not a road I’m going to go down.
"Even if I go up against Burnley on Saturday with the squad of players I currently have available or we go with 11 players from the youth team last year, I’m fine because I know they’ll give 100%.”
Ultimately, despite his current frustrations, the Blues boss is hopeful of getting his targets, but if not will work with the squad he’s got: "From a footballing point of view, I’m fairly confident that the players want to come, they’ve told me that, but you’ve got to get over the finishing line.
"Players have got to look at their contracts, length of contracts, the money they might want to receive, the money they might want to receive from the clubs they are leaving. It’s complicated, but we’ll see. Maybe by tomorrow or by Friday night that might have changed, who knows?
"I’m quite relaxed about it. I’m happy with the players I’m working with as much as I’m short. They’re good lads and we'll go into the game having a right go, which is all you can ask of players, win, lose or draw.”
Meanwhile, Cardiff midfielder Stephen McPhail has also been the subject of conversations between Roy Keane and Dave Jones, according to reports in Wales. Yesterday, the Blues were reported to be ready to move for Ross McCormack, having failed to land Michael Chopra.
Elsewhere, reported Town target Scott Sinclair has joined Swansea City from Chelsea for a fee of £500,000.