Former loanee Jimmy Bullard has rejoined the Blues, signing a two-year contract. The 32-year-old, last season's Player of the Year, underwent a medical at Portman Road last night and completed the formalities this morning.
Manager Paul Jewell said: "Jimmy Bullard’s signed and he’s an Ipswich player for the next two years. I’m absolutely delighted. It’s been an ongoing thing since Jimmy was here last year.
"We tried to broker a deal for him to come back but Hull, as was their prerogative, he was their player, weren’t prepared to let him out on for a [loan] fee we could really afford.
"Something’s gone on there, I don’t know what’s gone on. He’s obviously become a free agent and as soon as we heard that, we moved very quickly and spoke to his agent and the player, and we did a deal yesterday afternoon.
"I think it shows how much Jimmy enjoyed it here. He rang Monday and said there were a couple of clubs interested, one Premier, one or two Championship, but his preferences was to come here.
"It was down to finances to a certain extent but the most important thing was that we knew that he wanted to come and Jimmy knew that we wanted him."
The Town manager says the club haven't broken the bank to do the deal and confirmed that, as reported by TWTD yesterday, Portsmouth and QPR were the other main contenders: "No one comes cheap in this game these days. I think the owner deserves credit but so does Jimmy because everyone knows Jimmy was on a huge salary at Hull.
"I don’t know what’s gone on there and it’s not for me to speak about what’s gone on there. Money wasn’t the biggest issue. It was just ‘do you want me to come?’, and I asked him whether he wanted to come here.
"We didn’t want to get into a situation where we were bargaining against other clubs. I know that there was interest from QPR and definitely Portsmouth, but Jimmy wanted to come here, which is great.
"Both parties were happy to do it and hopefully he can have the same effect on this season as he did last.”
"We’re still waiting on the paperwork to go through for Daryl Murphy, who’s coming in on loan from Celtic, and with Ibrahima Sonko, we’re just waiting for his Twitter page to come up to confirm that!"