Blues boss Paul Jewell neither confirmed nor denied whether there was any truth in reports that Town are considering a move for Aston Villa keeper Brad Guzan. The Town manager was similarly taciturn regarding Portsmouth number one Stephen Henderson and the situation with the Blues' two other Pompey targets.
Asked about Guzan, linked by one of yesterday’s tabloids, Jewell said: "If the papers keep on guessing often enough they’re probably going to get one or two. One of the areas where we need to get a first choice is the goalkeeper.
"Alex McCarthy came in and I thought he did OK on Saturday but his long-term future will be at Reading, so we need to try and nail down a [regular] goalkeeper as that’s something we haven’t had for a while. Certainly this season we’ve been chopping and changing too much. We need to nail a number one down.”
Asked about Portsmouth keeper Henderson, whose January move to the Blues broke down over to personal terms, Jewell said: "You can go on all day long. We are looking for a goalkeeper, we’re looking for other players and we have got targets in mind. I’m not trying to be evasive, I just don’t want to talk about every bit of speculation.”
On Friday, chief executive Simon Clegg told TWTD that the Blues' move for Henderson and team-mates Joel Ward, whose January move also broke down due to his contractual demands, and centre-half Jason Pearce was still "a live issue”.
Jewell remained tight-lipped regarding any progress on that front: "Portsmouth is just an issue, isn’t it? It’s a bit of an ongoing saga there. We hope they stay in business.
"We’re always on the lookout to try and improve. We made an offer for a couple of their players, everyone knows that didn’t happen.
"Sometimes in football you move on, sometimes you go back, but I don’t really want to comment on that at the moment.”
Should Portsmouth go out of business, the Blues and West Ham would be the big losers, having taken six points from their two games against Pompey.
As the Hampshire club sell their players to raise funds, they may find it increasingly difficult to field a team and fulfil their fixtures, but Jewell is yet to consider helping their cause by loaning them any members of his squad and says that might not be feasible in any case: "Unless they sell and get money in, it’s no good us loaning them [players] because they won’t be able to pay their wages.”
However, he is well aware of where Town would be were Pompey’s results to be expunged: "It would put us 11 points clear of second bottom with two going down. Let’s hope for football’s sake [it doesn’t happen], never mind our own.
"I think West Ham might have something to say about that as well. Maybe they’ll loan them some players or loan them some money!”