Town manager Mick McCarthy says that although he has started the search for another striker, no new signing is currently imminent. On-loan Derby frontman Conor Sammon left the Blues earlier in the week having had his season-loan spell cut short, prior to joining Rotherham yesterday.
"We’re looking,” said the Town manager. "But we’ve not got one coming in the door yet.”
Asked whether he thought it might be difficult to persuade players to join the club on loan given that David McGoldrick and Daryl Murphy are firmly established as the first-choice frontmen, McCarthy added: "Of course, but it’s not an exact science, is it?
"It’s human beings we’re dealing with and you do get injuries, illness, suspensions or you get three or four games on the bounce when it gets a little bit too much and somebody will get a game. It’s got to happen.”
The Blues have previously been linked with various strikers including Leicester’s Chris Wood and West Brom’s Adil Nabi, while McCarthy and his assistant were at the Norwich-Manchester United U21s match last Friday with Jesse Lingard, Will Keane and Nick Powell, a Town target in his Crewe days, all in the Red Devils’ line-up.
McCarthy doesn’t blame Sammon for wanting to move on to get games with his opportunities at Town having been limited in recent months: "When he played the first few games and we played three up front, himself Murph and Didz they were a real handful and he contributed a lot, scored what turned out to be the winner at Wigan, of course,” he said.
"But he’s not had his opportunities, purely and simply because we’ve had the two other Irish strikers playing in front of him and being outstanding.
"And I get that he wants to play and he wants to progress his career and I couldn’t really set about stopping him doing that if he’s going to get games.”