Blues boss Paul Jewell has confirmed that Town’s three bids — for Portsmouth pair Joel Ward and Jason Pearce and Crewe’s Nick Powell - have all been rejected. However, the Town manager says that that’s only to be expected with no club ever accepting a first offer.
Jewell said: "We’ve made offers and as far as I’m aware they’ve all been rejected. I’ve never been the manager of a club which has accepted a first bid, I’ve never known a first bid to be accepted by a selling club.”
While that appears to intimate that Jewell is keen to make further offers, he says owner Marcus Evans and chief executive Simon Clegg will now assess the financial side of the proposed moves: "I’ll let other people deal with that side of it. If we’re so far apart there’s no good wasting everybody’s time — ours, Portsmouth’s, the players’ — if a deal can’t be done.
"If there’s a deal to be done and we can do it, we’re interested. If not, we move on.”
The Town boss refused to confirm that the third bid was for Crewe’s Nick Powell with the Railwaymen, unlike Portsmouth, yet to comment: "It’s private. If clubs want to come out like Portsmouth have and say they’ve had bids rejected by Ipswich, that’s fair enough, but I don’t really want to comment on anyone else.”
As things stand, Jewell now doesn’t expect Leicester’s Sean St Ledger to join: "He played on Tuesday for Leicester against Forest in the FA Cup, so it looks like he might be in their plans.
"We thought we had something done last week but it hasn’t happened and for whatever reason that’s probably gone now.”
Jewell dismissed links with Swindon pair Matt Ritchie and Paul Caddis and ex-Blackpool midfielder Bojan Djordjic.