Blues boss Paul Jewell wasn’t ruling out adding to his squad before Thursday’s 5pm loan deadline after Saturday’s 3-2 defeat at Nottingham Forest. The Town manager was left frustrated by his side’s inability to hold on to their 2-1 lead after what he felt was an improved performance.
Jewell, who has watched a number of young players in the lower leagues in recent months, says he’s always looking to add to his squad, regardless of any impending deadlines: "I think we’re always looking to improve whether the deadline day is Thursday or January or yesterday or the day before.
"We’re always making enquiries to try and see if we can get people that might be available to try and improve the squad.”
Despite the loss, he says Saturday’s display was an improvement on those against Millwall and Doncaster: "I thought we did quite well. We had our system, they had their system. We were missing Keith Andrews, which was a blow for us, and Sonko.
"But I thought for long periods we did OK against Forest, however, at vital times in games we haven’t got that belief in ourselves that we can see out matches, like we did against Portsmouth.”
The Town manager feels his side put themselves in trouble too often: "When we come away from home, where the crowd are baying for blood, there’s nothing better than going in the dressing room knowing you’ve quietened them down.
"But we encourage them by playing little balls in the middle of the park that will put us on the back foot.
"Two or three times we played square balls in the middle of the park when we were in complete control of possession and all of a sudden we’ve turned the ball over to the opposition, and that’s what’s costing us.”
Jewell felt that David Stockdale’s error for the first Forest goal was a key moment: "If you go in 1-0 up at half-time it’s a different feel. You give a different team-talk, there’s a different atmosphere in the dressing room, but we gave a goal away right on half-time, which was disappointing.
"But having said that, we got ourselves back in the lead at 2-1 and although Forest were putting the pressure on, I don’t think Stocky’s had that many saves to make.”
On the upside, the Blues boss was pleased to see Danny Collins score two goals from corners, having previously said he is looking for more goals from his centre-halves: "It’s an important part of the game.
"The central defenders go up for every set play and Danny’s got two today, but unfortunately we’ve conceded two from set plays as well.”