Blues boss Mick McCarthy says he hopes striker Jack Marriott returns from his month on loan at Woking ready for the busy Championship Christmas period. The 19-year-old is expected to complete his switch today with the Skrill Premier side next in action against Dartford at home on Tuesday.
McCarthy says that with Paul Taylor having returned from his loan spell, Marriott is currently a little way off the first team squad but: "I’m so pleased with what I’ve got at the moment.
"I think he will be [ready for the first team] but we’ve just brought Tayls back, we paid a lot of money for Tayls and we’ve seen what he can be. He’s in front of him in the pecking order.
"Like everybody else, we’ve got a really serious Christmas time with games and if he can go out and get a month’s football, playing six or seven games with a really competitive edge to it [that will benefit him].
"The U21s doesn’t always have that competitive edge, so it would serve us well coming into Christmas.”
Earlier in the week, top scorer David McGoldrick made comparisons between Marriott and a young Michael Owen.
"Praise indeed from Didsy!” McCarthy added. "He’s a goalscorer, definitely.”
McCarthy reiterated that while he’s always on the lookout for potential loanees of his own, they have to be good enough to go straight into his team.
"We keep looking but the loanees have to be better than what I’ve got, and if they’re not there’s no point in really doing it unless I’m going to stick them in the team,” he said.
"That’s a difficult set of circumstances, you take them from somewhere else and you bring them in and put them on the bench. That doesn’t really work, it has to be somebody that can go in.
"But you know what, at the moment, I’m delighted with the lads I’ve got. If the right one comes along, then, yes, we’ll do it.”
Tottenham’s Harry Kane was linked by the weekend tabloids and McCarthy doesn’t entirely dismiss being interested, although Spurs are believed to want a significant loan fee for the England U21 international and manager Andre Villas-Boas is undecided whether he’ll be sending him out on loan with the 20-year-old on the fringes of his team.
Asked whether Kane was on his radar, the Blues boss added: "We’ve loads of strikers on the radar. You can watch him tonight, he’ll be playing for Tottenham against Sheriff, so we can all watch him tonight and scout him.”
Kane was lively after coming on as a 69th minute sub in the Europa League tie against the Moldovans at White Hart Lane which the home side won 2-1.