Town manager Mick McCarthy says the Blues are more likely to add loan signings to the squad during the remaining week of the transfer window rather than permanent signings.
McCarthy told the club site: "We’d like to get players in before the window closes, permanent ones but we are not having much joy at the moment.
"We’re looking at loans now more than signings and I know I said that I didn’t want to do that but at least if it’s window to window, they stay with us until the end of the season.”
He says clubs usually want to get signings in before they'll let people move on, while free agents aren’t always quite as free as they initially appear: "It’s just frustrating because if you’re signing somebody [the other club] generally wants to make sure they’ve got somebody else.
"It’s always expensive in January to sign them, and then there are players who are ‘free transfers’. They are free transfers, that’s fine, and if you’re taking them on a long deal, a two-and-a-half-year deal, that’s fine.
"But if you want to take them until the end of the season, that sounds like a good deal until you realise that our season finishes on May 4th and we pay them to July 30th.
"So, they get May, June and July wages for being sat on the beach somewhere, which doesn’t really add up.
"It’s never as easy as ‘I’d like to sign him and he’s going to come’ and everything’s great. It’s not that easy.”
Meanwhile, Coventry manager Mark Robins is reported to have said he doesn't want to sign former Blues striker Jason Scotland, but confirmed that discussions had taken place with the 33-year-old, whose Blues contract was settled at the weekend.