Town boss Paul Jewell says he’d like to sign midfielder Keith Andrews and defender Danny Collins on a permanent basis. Andrews’s half-season loan from Blackburn is up in January, while Collins’s now extended spell from Stoke ends after the Derby County match in December.
Asked whether he’d like to make Republic of Ireland star Andrews a permanent addition to his squad, Jewell said: "We’d like to, the same with Danny Collins.
"But people have to realise they’re on Premier League contracts and if we can’t do it, we can’t do it, but somewhere along the line we’d love to do it.
"If the players want to do it and we can come to some arrangement with the clubs, we’d love to do it, but I don’t want to say it’s going to happen as it might not because there’ll be other clubs watching them keeping doing well or Blackburn might want Keith back. But all things being equal, we’d like to keep them.
"Marcus has spoken to Keith’s agent and has indicated that we’d would like to keep Keith here beyond this season. But it’s not that easy, as I’m sure you can imagine.”
Andrews has 18 months remaining on his deal at Ewood Park, but has no intention of returning to the Lancashire side, and Collins's Stoke terms are also up at the end of 2012/13.
The Blues boss says he’s continuing his search for young talent in the mould of summer signing Aaron Cresswell, having made the trip to watch Preston North End and Southend last Saturday: "We also want to bring in a younger element to the squad, the Cressys of this world, who show a real hunger and desire to play and enjoy coming into training every day.
"If you can get the right mixture of young and experienced players then it will be a terrific future for us."
Meanwhile, he says midfielder Andy Drury, whose loan at Crawley is up in December, could still be in his plans on his return: "He has been an bit unfortunate since he has been here in fairness.
"He has come in and played well, but then been left out. He has probably not had the long run in the team.”
However, Jewell says he will look to "trim" his large squad during the January transfer window when he says bringing in another central defender in addition to the players he already has will be amongst his priorities.