Disappointed Town boss Paul Jewell says he’s not now expecting to add to his squad before this season’s opening game at Bristol City on Saturday. The Blues have been trying to land Blackburn midfielder Keith Andrews on loan and another unnamed addition, while Jewell confirmed that, as reported by TWTD on Tuesday, Slovenian youngster Aljaž Struna has been at the club this week.
Jewell said: "There won’t be any new signings for the weekend unless something comes out of left field.
"We were hoping to have one, maybe two [new signings for Saturday], but for different reasons they’re not going to happen. Hopefully they can happen in the next couple of weeks.
"I think it’s important to stress that it’s not all about Saturday, whatever the result Saturday - good, bad or indifferent - we’re still going to try to improve the squad.
"I’m disappointed in the way one of the clubs has behaved in the… I’d like to say negotiations, but there are no negotiations when someone won’t answer your calls.
"That’s one disappointment. Maybe they haven’t paid their bill. Maybe they’ll come back to us later in the week.”
Blackburn’s Keith Andrews is likely to have been one of the players Jewell hoped to have signed with the 30-year-old Republic of Ireland international understood to want to join the Blues but with clubs yet to agree the terms of a loan deal. The other player’s identity, probably a centre-half, remains a mystery.
Jewell refused to be drawn on the identities of his targets: "I’m not going to comment on names because we could be here all day. There are lots of names which have been bandied about, I think sometimes people just pick them out of a hat and luckily sometimes they might strike lucky.
"There’s no point in me talking about speculation and saying yes or no to names because we could be here all day.”
The Town manager did confirm that FC Koper defender or midfielder Aljaž Struna had been at the club this week, although the Slovenian U21 international, who celebrates his 21st birthday today, has now returned home: "He’s been training here. We’ve had him here for three days’ training just to have a look at him.
"The lad’s from Slovenia, he’s connected to a club and his club were good enough to let us have a look at him and we might pursue that in the future. He’s a midfield player who can also play at right-back.
"It’s really in the very early stages. Don’t write that we’re going to sign him, we’re just having a look at him.”
Jewell reiterated that he has given up on his attempts to bring former loanee Jimmy Bullard back to Portman Road from Hull: "We’ve spoken to [Hull’s head of football operations] Adam Pearson a number of times over the summer and I’ve spoken to Jimmy.
"It’s something that we would love to have done but financially it’s out of our remit. We’d like to have had Lionel Messi but we couldn’t afford him and I think Jimmy might be on a little bit more money to honest!”
The Town boss confirmed that he has a fully fit squad for Saturday's trip to Ashton Gate.
Elsewhere, former Town loanee Darren O'Dea has joined Leeds from Celtic for the season on a similar basis.