Blues boss Paul Jewell has revealed that ex-FC Köln central defender Kevin Pezzoni has been on trial at Playford Road for the last three days. The Town manager has spent the international week searching for central defensive recruits but confirmed that no one will be joining the club before Saturday’s game at Middlesbrough with former trialist Bilel Mohsni definitely not signing.
Jewell said: "Like always, we’re trying to improve the squad. We know we need another centre-half to come in and provide cover for the two we’ve got.
"We had Bilel Mohsni from Southend, we asked him to stay for another week but he decided against it and has gone back to Paris.
"We’ve had Kevin Pezzoni training with us from Köln for three days this week. It’s an area that we need to improve and we’re aware of that and we haven’t been successful as yet.
"He’s been training with us since Tuesday. He’s a free agent, we’ve had a look at him this week, I’ve spoken to his father and I’ll be speaking to his agent and let him know the decision.”
Frankfurt-born Pezzoni played youth football with RM Walldorf, SV Darmstadt 98 and Eintracht Frankfurt before joining the Blackburn Rovers academy.
The 23-year-old 6ft 5in tall centre-half or midfielder, capped at U19, U20 and U21 levels by Germany, moved to his most recent club in January 2008 but had his contract ripped up recently after he received threats from fans of his own club online, then was attacked at a funfair and threatened at his home.
His former coach Holger Stanislawski admitted that the defender had to move on: "Things have happened that prevented Kevin from playing football at this club."
Speaking earlier this week, Pezzoni was critical of his old club: "I never wanted to cancel my contract. A proposal was put forward to me by the club.
"What else could I have expected? My situation was not going to get any better.
"Who knows if after the next bad game these guys would have suddenly appeared in my apartment rather than just outside it.
"A club is supposed to protect its players and supporters, but this was not the case."
Having had his contract terminated before the transfer window closed, Pezzoni, who has recently been linked with Aston Villa, Middlesbrough and Celtic, could sign and play now.
Jewell says the situation with Mohsni is now at a close with the Shrimpers but not the player willing to allow the Blues to take an extended look, although with no fee having been offered: "Southend agreed he could come and train with us for a week and play for the U21s last week.
"We wanted to see a bit more because we felt he hadn’t been tested and he wasn’t prepared to do that. Southend were, but the lad wasn’t and I think he’s gone back to Paris. That's over now.”
Jewell confirmed that, as we reported earlier in the week, the George Boyd situation is on the back burner while the central defensive additions are resolved: "Barry Fry came on the phone to me last week and asked me about George Boyd because I’d made comments in the press about him.
"I was only answering a question after either George’s agent or the Peterborough end had let it out that there might be a loan situation. There might well be, but it’s not our priority at the moment.”
Town have confirmed that French midfielder Cheick Kourouma’s move will go through although paperwork from Italy is still to be received.