Roy Keane says he wants to add “one or two” attacking players to his squad during the January transfer window. The Blues boss says he has already identified some targets and would ideally like to get deals done sooner rather than later.
Town’s lack of goals has been Keane’s main concern throughout the season: "The teams which are going to do well in this league are the teams who are going to score goals. Every team in the Championship will concede goals, it’s that type of league. We still don’t score enough.
"Our attacking players don’t score enough goals. We do get the ball in the box quite a bit, we get a lot of chances but we’ve got to take them. We managed to take them the other night but we need to take them against Watford.
"I think we need players, I think I’ve said that a million times over the last few months. We need more strength in depth, probably need more experience. We probably need one or two more attacking players. That’s my wish-list for Christmas.”
Keane has "a good idea” whether he’ll get the players he wants and says he’d ideally like to start doing business quickly with other clubs already having offers accepted: "We don’t want to wait until the fourth week in January. That’s another four weeks of the Championship and that’s a lot of games.
"In an ideal world you’d like them as quick as you can, particularly if we can get two attacking players. You need them as quick as you can, but you have to agree fees.
"I think we could and should be doing that now, like Hull, who I think have had offers accepted over the last day or two, so things are in place. If you want to buy an attacking player, why wait until the last week in January when you’re writing off four weeks of the season?”
Keane, who plans to utilise both the permanent and loan markets, doesn’t want wholesale changes, believing he has a "decent group of players” but feels that the squad suffers when senior players are sidelined: "When we’ve had injuries we have struggled to cope, so we certainly need one or two players and hopefully we can do that.”
The Blues boss says he has spoken to chief executive Simon Clegg about his plans, discussions which will continue throughout the window: "The dreaded budget comes into it, it plays a major part in who we can get.
"We might get offers for some of our boys and that might release a few bob. Who knows? It’s all ifs and ands and it changes on a daily basis.
"These conversations might have to take more importance over the next few weeks, depending on whether the loan players are called back, whether we get offers for our own players and depending on whether we get any more injuries.”
The future of the five loan players will be decided in January with Keane hoping a few will stay: "There’s some we’d like to keep, but it’ll come down to the clubs and the players. But also I still think we need one or two permanent players, but we’ll see whether that happens.”
The Blues boss hinted that Sunderland’s Jack Colback would remain when asked if he wanted him to stay - "have a guess” — while Rory Fallon has impressed so far and could sign permanently from Plymouth. Celtic defender Darren O’Dea has said he is happy with life at Portman Road, although the Irish international is currently out of the team.
Reports in the Midlands have suggested West Brom full-back Gianni Zuiverloon is enjoying his spell at Portman Road and the club are keen to extend his spell, while Jake Livermore appears likely to return to Spurs having failed to make a significant impact.
Keane says Town will assess whether the likes of Lee Martin will be called back from their loan spells, although in all likelihood the midfielder will stay at Charlton, Pablo Couñago at Crystal Palace and Kevin Lisbie at Millwall.
The Blues manager expects a fair number of deals to take place in the Championship in January and tips Sven-Goran Eriksson to be the busiest boss: "I think Leicester will be doing lots of business in January and if you look at their bench the other night, that wasn’t bad anyway — Steve Howard and Matt Fryatt were there and Roman Bednar was injured. I should ring Sven and find out how he does it!”