Blues boss Mick McCarthy says he’ll only use the loan market to augment his squad next season, believing that Town have had far too many players on a temporary basis this season. The Blues have had 16 different players on loan over the course of 2012/13.
"We’ve had too many, without a doubt,” McCarthy said. "When I’ve signed loan players and have to leave them out of the squad, that’s not right, and that’s happened a couple of times.
"An ideal squad number? You could do with 20 players, you’d want two players for every position if you could, 22, but it might not be the case that you can do it.
"I understand that the loan market can be good because you can have some good players from Premier League clubs, but you need a base of your own players, without any doubt. And loan players come in to supplement that, in my view.”
As he looks ahead to next season and decides who he might look to keep or move on, he says he has learnt about his squad as this campaign has progressed: "You learn all the time, from day one, from November 1st from walking in.
"You learn about individuals and you learn about them collectively. Some things you like, some you don’t, but I have to say in the main, for the most part, I’ve liked what I’ve seen of the players.”
Defender Richard Stearman has done well since joining on loan in January but McCarthy wouldn’t be drawn on whether he feels the 25-year-old could become a permanent addition in the summer: "He’s a Wolves player and I wouldn’t even begin to talk about it because it would be unprofessional and unfair.
"What I would say is that he has done very, very well. He has been excellent. But he’s a loan player, he’s not my player. Wolves might want to take him back, somebody else might fancy him the way he’s played for me.”
Given Stearman’s excellent form for the Blues, Wolves' willingness to allow him to move might be seen as a surprise, although the Town manager says his former club had plenty of defensive options at the time: "They’d got Ronald Zubar [now with Ajaccio in France], they’d got Kevin Foley, they had got Richard Stearman, who is a right-back and centre-half and does both equally as well, which is nice.
"They’ve also got young Matt Doherty as well, who has been playing, so they were well blessed with right-backs, and we took advantage of it.”
In terms of the other members of his solid backline being targeted in the close season, McCarthy is relaxed about the possibility: "Whatever. If they are, great, it means they’ve played well. They’re under contract. That doesn’t bother me in the slightest.
"We all want to do well and we all want to be the best we possibly can. Whether it’s players who want to do well while they’re at Ipswich and they move on and end up being Premier League players or me, that’s the way it is.
"I’d like to think they’re all ambitious and if somebody comes in and buys one of them for big dough, then we’ll go and get somebody else and start again. That’s the way it is. It makes the football world go around.”