Town manager Paul Jewell says his summer transfer activity doesn’t feel like an overnight rebuild to him as he’s been working on deals since before the end of last season. The Blues boss has added seven players to his squad - Michael Chopra, Ãvar Ingimarsson, Aaron Cresswell, Nathan Ellington, Jay Emmanuel-Thomas, David Stockdale and Lee Bowyer - so far with more set to follow.
Jewell said: "It doesn’t seem like a major overhaul to me because I’ve been doing it since the before the season finished. It hasn’t been that I’ve brought in seven in a week. It seems like it’s happened over quite a long period.
"At football clubs you’re never satisfied, even if you win the league. Very rarely do Manchester United or Chelsea feel at the end of a season that they’re happy with what they’ve got.
"They’re always looking to improve. We want to get to a stage where we only need to tinker with two or three positions, rather than seven.
"We had a lot of people come in and a lot of people go out, so it will take a bit of time to be stable and settled, but I’m very happy with the people we’ve got in and happy with the people we’ve got here already, and I’ll be even happier if we get someone else in.”
The Blues manager had hoped to add midfielder Keith Andrews to his squad in time to play at Bristol City on Saturday but the deal has stalled due to Town having been unable to negotiate the terms of the deal with his club Blackburn.
The Irish international's season-long loan move is still expected to go ahead, perhaps even today but more likely next week. Jewell had also hoped to add a central defender to his options — he says he could be looking for two more — but was unable to land that target.
Arsenal’s Kyle Bartley, reportedly the subject of a recent Town enquiry but probably not the defender the Blues were close to signing, has rejoined Rangers on a season-long loan.
Jewell says no club is ever going to sign all the players they are after: "You’re not going to be successful with every target. There are some people who aren’t for sale, some people that are for sale but are too expensive and sometimes people don’t want to come. With all those things, you’re not going to get all the ones you want.”
The former Wigan and Bradford boss says he will continue to look at bringing in new players even after the end of the transfer window: "It’s ongoing. We’re always looking to improve the squad, even after August when we can explore the loan market. We definitely want to keep on improving the squad.
"That’s the beauty of the Championship. Once August 31st goes we can still trade with loans. At the end of the day Premier League clubs can’t buy anyone after that, so maybe things will happen then.”
Jewell says he’s happy enough with the seven signings he has made so far: "We’ve got a bit of experience with Lee Bowyer, we’ve got the young precocious talent of Jay Emmanuel-Thomas and young Cressy. I think they’ve all got different strengths.
"I’m pleased with them all but pleading for a little bit of patience because it will take time, some of them only came in not so long ago.
"It takes time and I’m looking forward to bringing in a couple more signings, allying them to the players we’ve got here and having a decent season.”
Elsewhere, Beerschot AC midfielder Faris Haroun, who was linked with Town earlier in the summer, is being tipped to join Middlesbrough.