Boss Paul Jewell says he hadn’t planned to bring in short-term loanees such as Richie Wellens, who signed a one-month deal yesterday, and DJ Campbell, who looks set to join him at Portman Road later today, but that he felt they were required to get Town's stuttering season back on track. The Blues manager insists that he still sees building a team as a long-term project.
Jewell said there has been cash available to make additions, but it’s been a case of finding suitable new recruits: "There has always been money available for me to try and get players in, it’s just getting right ones. This is the balancing act.
"I can bring people in, I could bring people in tomorrow. I know that the money’s available, but I don’t think they’ll be the right ones. You’ve got to try and get the right players.
"We didn’t want to bring loan players in, that was our aim, but we might have to bring in some short-term deals to try and get us out of this hole and try and then look beyond when we get to January.
"I keep saying, it was a long-term project when I came here and I understand that my contract runs out at the end of the year, but I think I’ve got to try and make decisions with an eye on the short-term but with a view to the long-term, [making sure they’re] the right ones to get us out of the sticky situation we’re in.”
Speaking yesterday lunchtime, Jewell said that he has liaised with owner Marcus Evans on several occasions this week as they worked on deals to add Wellens, Campbell and Mohsni to his squad: "One minute he’s in Montreal, then he’s in Chicago, then he’s in California. We’re trying to bring a couple of players in as we speak.
"Marcus is aware that we need a little bit of help and he’s trying to help us. I’m not happy with the situation, Marcus isn’t happy with the situation, nobody’s happy with the situation who is connected with Ipswich. But, at the end of the day, we’re going to try to fight our way out of it.”
While there is money to spend, he says it’s evident that there are a number of clubs in the division with budgets above and beyond Town's.
He says that may mean they beat the Blues to signings in the short-term, the future may not be entirely rosy for all of them later on down the line: "I think fans are intelligent enough to realise that when they look around the league and at what teams are spending or have spent that it’s going to be a struggle for us to compete with that.
"Money doesn’t guarantee you anything but it gives you a really good chance when you’re spending the vast amounts of money that some clubs have, not all clubs.
"Certainly I feel in the Championship this year there are a few clubs that if they don’t go up, could find themselves in financial difficulty.
"We don’t want that. As I’ve said a million times before, look at Portsmouth. We don’t want to be one of them, whether when I’m here or in 10 years’ time.
"The club can never be put at risk. It’s been put at risk before and the club went into administration. That’s what people don’t want.”
He empathises with supporters’ frustrations at the current situation, however, and says no one wants to get away from the division’s lower reaches more than himself: "I understand that fans don’t want to be down the bottom, me more than anyone, I don’t want to be down the bottom. It makes your life hell, it really does.
"At the same time, Marcus is being straight and honest with me and it’s not as if we’re penny pinching, we’re just trying to look after the long-term interest of the football club.
"Marcus has been at this club for five years and has spent a lot of money and we haven’t had the success that maybe that investment should have had, and that includes when I’ve been here.
"But when we’re up against some of the big spenders and the big payers, we can’t compete at this moment in time.
"If those lads get promoted, that’s fine. If they don’t get promoted, next year the wages and maybe the owners won’t be about. I’m sure Marcus will.”