Town boss Paul Jewell confirmed that the Blues’ attempt to sign two Portsmouth players — Joel Ward and Stephen Henderson — broke down after the duo failed to agree personal terms, as reported by TWTD earlier, the clubs having agreed a joint fee. The pair were part of a triple bid Town had been working on for almost a fortnight along with central defender Jason Pearce.
Jewell, who says nothing else is currently ongoing as the 11pm deadline approaches, admitted that the final day of the transfer window hadn’t gone to plan: "It’s been a bit of a nightmare really. I thought we had at least two deals done and they’ve all fallen through at about five o’clock, which is a right nightmare. We’ve spent a lot of time and a lot of energy on it but it’s not to be.”
Town can still sign the Pompey pair - who Jewell didn't name - on the basis of loans leading to permanent deals in a week’s time and the Blues boss isn’t ruling out further overtures to the Hampshire club: "You never say never. We would have liked the players but at the moment it’s fallen through. I’m not going to point the finger at anyone, they’ve the right to say no.
"We’ve spent a lot of time and a lot of energy and it hasn’t been got over the line, so we move on or things might be revisited.”
Town and other Championship sides had offers for Pearce turned down by Pompey earlier today.
Jewell is no fan of the transfer window, especially so when it ends on a day when there’s a fixture: "It’s so nonsensical, the transfer window. I said to Marcus this afternoon when we were talking about things breaking down, we want to move the club a certain way and I think throwing money after things you’re not 100% sure about can be dangerous.
"We might have to take a bit of flak for it and a little bit of stick but we want to try and do the right thing for the long-term of the club.
"That doesn’t mean we’re paying people peanuts but at times we’ve all been guilty of paying over the odds for too many players, and I think football is counting the cost of that.”
Town also missed out on Falkirk defender Murray Wallace, who has joined Huddersfield, which Jewell says was partly due to the Blues trying to renegotiate the £300,000 up-front fee: "We watched him on Sunday and we’d agreed a fee and I think he might be a good player, one for the future, but there’s a little bit more to that than meets the eye. We’re disappointed to be missing out on that in a way, but these things happen.
"We had a bit of a rethink on the deal, we tried to give them less money up front and more on appearances, but they didn’t want to do that, which you can understand. I think the lad was impressed with us, but there you go.”
The Town manager confirmed that he had also looked at shorter term signings to tide the Blues over to the summer window, including Stoke’s Danny Higginbotham: "I spoke to Danny yesterday but he doesn’t want to come on loan, he wants to move permanently. Things might change when the window closes and people haven’t got a club, I don’t know.
"Because you’re up against time and everything it’s ridiculous, especially when you’re trying to prepare for the game today.”
Higginbotham has subsequently joined Nottingham Forest on loan with earlier reports suggesting he didn't want to move too far away from his family home in the north.
Elsewhere, former Blues loanee Keith Andrews has joined West Brom on a free transfer from Blackburn.