Boss Mick McCarthy is delighted to have assembled his squad by the end of July, ahead of the start of the season at Reading next Saturday and well in advance of the end of the transfer window on Monday 2nd September. Speaking last week, the Town manager said he was after one more player and on Friday added Manchester United midfielder Ryan Tunnicliffe to his squad on loan, his 10th addition of the summer.
McCarthy is pleased to have made early acquisitions as planned: "Yes, of course I am. I think we’ve done well with our signings and we’ve got a good squad. I’m delighted with the squad that we’ve got.
"I think we’ve got some good players and we can look forward to a good season with the team that we’ve got.
"One or two are still getting [up to speed]. Ryan Tunnicliffe hasn’t played at that level, he’s been training, but it is different.
"Big Christophe is about four games behind everybody else, but Tyrone Mings came in and was excellent at left-back when Cressy went off [during Saturday's 3-3 draw at Notts County].
"He couldn’t do a lot about the first goal, it just hit the inside of his foot and dropped to Danny Haynes. All in all, I’m pleased. It was great to see Tayls back, it was a great finish from him.”
He says he’s got cover in virtually all areas: "The balance of the squad is good. We’ve got Elliott Hewitt and Freddie, two right full-backs, we’ve only got three centre-backs, it would be nice to have four of them, but you can only play two.
"We’ve got two keepers, two left-backs, two wide lefties, Tabby and Ando [Paul Anderson] can play anywhere, then there’s Carlos Edwards. We’re fine there.
"We’ve got a decent balance and with Ryan Tunnicliffe coming in we’ve got four central midfield players and four strikers.
"So we’ve 21 players that I’d say are first-teamers, first-choices, without having a fourth centre-back. Two players for every position.”
Eight of McCarthy’s 10 signings have been Bosman free agents, a type of deal he believes is more and more prevalent at Championship level - "It is with the Financial Fair Play rules” — but feels he wouldn’t have done much better if he’d splash a significant amount of cash.
"We haven’t signed anybody [for money, aside from £50,000 Jack Doherty] but I don’t know whether we would have got any better players if we had gone and spent a shed load of money. Probably not.”
He says Michael Chopra’s departure was always planned and the money saved on the now-Blackpool striker's wages has gone towards paying the players already signed: "I think I’ve done that money already, to be honest with you.
"It was in the budget that Michael was going to go and that’s allowed us to get the other players. Good luck to him, he’s on to pastures new and we’ve got four good strikers.”
One of that quartet, David McGoldrick has probably been the pick of the Town squad during pre-season and McCarthy pondered how much the one-time Notts County man might have cost had he still been in contract: "He’s a player and, talking about Bosmans, what would we have had to pay for a player of that quality had we not signed him on a Bosman?
"We got him sorted out last season and I’m thrilled with him, he’s great. And Murph, he’s on fire at the moment as well."
He was similarly delighted Paul Taylor’s brilliant freekick in Saturday’s 3-3 draw at Notts County, David McGoldrick having struck another excellent set-piece goal at Gillingham: "And Ando put good deliveries in.
"It’s nice [to have set piece options]. We’re saying ‘Quick, get it across the keeper’, but you don’t have to do anything if you smash it in the net from 30 yards.”
At the end of last season McCarthy said he hated pre-season, but admits this one was amongst the more enjoyable preludes to a campaign proper: "When I say I hate it, I hate it [because] there’s no pressure on us and the pressure starts now for next week against Reading and against Stevenage and Millwall, for results.
"I just hate the fact that they’re non-competitive, although this was a competitive game and they’ve gradually got more and more competitive. But they just don’t mean anything, do they?
"I hated it as a player because on the first day of the season I had my match head on. When I was playing in pre-season friendlies I just wanted to get through them and not get injured.
"And I feel a bit the same now. But I think it’s gone well. I’ve been pleased with them. I would like to have finished with a win, but the second half has taught me a lot about certain individuals and the team that we’ve got.”
Had 2012/13 started when McCarthy took over at Town on November 1st, they would have been sixth in the Championship and he says he’d like to emulate that play-off form over the season to come: "We’ve got to be aiming at that, of course. And we’ll see.
"We’ve got a difficult start, but I don’t think anybody will be rubbing their hands thinking ‘Happy days, Ipswich are coming here and they’re going to be a soft touch’, because they know we’re not. We’ll aim for as high as we can possibly finish.”
Elsewhere, former Blues trialist Bongani Khumalo and ex-loanee Richie Wellens - who left Leicester last week - are on trial at Doncaster and played in Rovers' 2-1 friendly victory over Bradford on Saturday.