Boss Mick McCarthy says the Blues don't want to sell 27-goal Championship top scorer Daryl Murphy this summer. The 32-year-old has been the subject of much speculation since his outstanding 2014/15 campaign.
McCarthy dismissed suggestions that Town already having made the £8 million sale of Tyrone Mings to Bournemouth would make a difference to Murphy’s situation and confirmed that he wants to keep hold of the Irish international, who is contracted for another year with the Blues having an option for a further season.
"Tyrone Mings going doesn’t mean anything, to be honest with you,” he said. "We don’t want to sell Daryl Murphy, we don’t want to lose Daryl Murphy.
"He’s still on a break because he’s only had a couple of weeks [off since being away with Ireland]. That’s what I’ll be telling him, and his agent - we want to keep him.
"He was the outstanding striker in this league last season and it would be difficult to fill his boots. We’re going to try and keep him.”
Fellow Ireland international David McGoldrick, Christophe Berra and Kevin Bru, who have been away with Scotland and Mauritius respectively, will also return a couple of weeks late but the Town manager believes they’ll benefit from the longer break.
"Pre-season friendlies don’t interest me or affect me,” he admitted. "They come back two weeks after the rest and I think they’ll still be just about ready for the start of the season. If they’re not we’ve got other lads who have come in.
"But they’ve got to have a rest, they’ve got to have a month off in my view. In 1988 when I was at Celtic I played in the European Championships and I came back and I got two weeks off.
"It was the best pre-season I ever had, I was flying. But in the September somebody took the batteries out of my back and I’d gone completely.
"So, having experienced it myself, I understand that you need to get away from the building, to just get away from football for a while and chill. Having had the experience myself, I think they need a month off, so that’s what they’ve got.”