Town boss Mick McCarthy will have money available to strengthen his squad in January if he needs it, according to joint-MD Jonathan Symonds.
"Absolutely,” he told TWTD when asked if funds would be available during the next transfer window. "There’ll be money to spend, if necessary.”
McCarthy added significantly to his squad over the summer but the £20,000 paid to Waterford United for youngster Jack Doherty was the only fee paid.
Symonds’s fellow MD Ian Milne says that this was partly down to so many Championship players being available on Bosman free transfers during the close season, Financial Fair Play and also owner Marcus Evans having seen that spending large sums of money doesn’t necessarily bring success under previous managers.
"Marcus has gone through the whole gamut of managers and players, spending fortunes on players and getting nothing, but at the moment he feels at ease, as I think we all do, with the signings we made this year."
He says Town have made a conscious effort to get current players tied down: "There have been a number of negotiations and extensions to contracts and all the players we’ve got are on quite decent length contracts.
"That’s a nice confidence to have, that we have people on staff, so to speak, for some period of time.”
Despite newspaper reports to the contrary, Milne says there are no plans to further extend Aaron Cresswell’s contract with the left-back’s current deal stretching to 2015 with an option for a further season.
"I think we’ve comfortable with that at the moment,” he said. "He is an asset and I think he’s a future left-back for England. At this time he stays playing with us and he’s very happy to do so.”
Cresswell was linked with several Premier League clubs in the summer but none of them ultimately firmed up their apparent interest.
Would Mick McCarthy get cash to reinvest in his squad if the 23-year-old were to be sold in January? "There is money there. Clearly Marcus’s financial commitment is with the club.
"We haven’t had any bids and it’s difficult to speculate about that,” Symonds added. "We’re very pleased that he’s an Ipswich Town player right now.”
"If a player went, I’m sure Mick would be the first one to negotiate, ‘OK, that one [goes], I want money for that’,” Milne continued.
"There’s going to be a bargain going on there and Marcus would, forgive the pun, have to play ball with Mick on that. But you don’t know until you’ve got an active situation.”
Milne says manager McCarthy and owner Marcus Evans continue to be the men doing all Town’s transfer business: "Marcus and Mick do all the buying and selling and discussion on that. We stay out of that, although Marcus does talk to us about it.
"We, along with [club secretary] Sally Webb, get involved in the contractual stuff, but who comes and who goes is up to Mick and Marcus, and who plays is purely Mick.”
But they may get involved in the transfer dealing side of the club’s management in the future, Symonds adds: "If there’s a reason to do it, yes.
"Right now, Mick manages the team and we manage the business. There has to be a need for us to get involved, but right now it’s working very well.
"Mick has got a good team, he works directly with Marcus on that and there doesn’t seem any reason to change that. But if needs must, we will, of course.”