Town boss Mick McCarthy says his squad isn’t too far away from the one which will start the new Championship season at Brentford on Saturday 8th August.
"I think we’re fairly close,” he said. "We’ve got the two keepers from last season, we’ve got everybody in the back four barring Tyrone Mings, of course.
"We signed [centre-half] Josh Yorwerth from Cardiff. Two young lads who played for the U21s last year, Josh Emmanuel and Myles Kenlock, I’ve really high hopes for. They’re a right-back and left-back.
"Skusey, Kevin Bru, Bish, Tabby and Luke Hyam are midfield players, Ainsley Maitland-Niles can play anywhere along the midfield.
"We’ve talked about the wingers [Ryan Fraser, Dylan Connolly, Alex Henshall and Cameron Stewart] and we’ve got four strikers.
Emmanuel
"I really only want 22 players, I don’t want 28, 29 or 30 players because you can’t use them all and the ones that are not involved end up getting disaffected and being a pain in the rear.”
Regarding that vacancy at left-back created by Tyrone Mings's exit, he says the shirt is Jonny Parr’s to secure as his own: "Jonny was great and having got in at Millwall when I put him on at wide left and he went on and scored, he had a few games at wide left or wide right. He’s played right-back as well.
Kenlock
"Sometimes being a good utility player doesn’t do you any favours because they get moved around but he was signed as a left-back and we’ve just lost the best left-back in the division.
"I was sad for Jonny because that’s his position. Well, he’s under pressure now to perform there, because that’s his position.”
Yorwerth
Darren Ambrose is back at the club and could win a fourth stint with the Blues if he impresses during pre-season training.
"I’ve offered Darren a chance to train," McCarthy said. "I thought he was good with us last season. But I guess he’s got to find a position really that he can get in and play in the team.
"But he certainly added to training, he’s a good character around the place and he was unlucky towards the end because he got in the side and played very well.
"Then he trained on the Thursday and did his hamstring and he was injured for most of the rest of the season. It’s a chance for him, but it’s just a chance, there are no promises either way.”
The Blues boss says he hasn’t offered the same opportunity to Stephen and Noel Hunt, Richard Chaplow or Paul Anderson, like Ambrose not given new terms at the end of the season in May but told the offer of a contract may be made later on in the summer.
He says he is still keeping his options open: "I guess that’s what I’m doing. I’ve got four strikers at the minute and I’ve talked about the lads that I’ve got wide in terms of Dylan Connolly and Ainsley Maitland-Niles. I’m going to see what we do with them first.”
Cameron Stewart, who made only two FA Cup sub appearances last season before joining Barnsley on loan having joined on a free transfer from Hull City last summer, returned to Playford Road yesterday and McCarthy says he, like Alex Henshall, can get himself back into his plans.
"He’s the same. He comes back and he’s got to get his nose down and see if he can get in the team, see if he can get in the squad first,” he said.
"Everybody’s the same. They come back and they’ve just got to crack on. They’ve all come back and their fitness stats are unbelievable most of them.”
Asked whether he has got all the money from the Mings sale to spend he joked: "It’s under my mattress at home.”
He refused to be drawn on weekend links with Hibernian midfielder Scott Allan: "We’ll be linked with loads, even more so now everybody thinks we’ve got a shedload of cash.
"Whatever gets invested I hope we manage to reinvest it wisely. But I wouldn’t discuss players that we’re interested in, or not interested in for that matter.”
He added: "I’d like to think I could spend it wisely, and hopefully I can. It’s a lot easier if you make mistakes when you sign them for nothing and don’t pay them a lot, mistakes get overlooked a little bit. Hopefully it will be spent wisely and well, whatever that might be.”
Quizzed on whether the fees selling clubs will want from Town will increase due to them knowing the Blues have money in the bank, he added: "I’ve got an owner that is probably one of the best at handling all that, so that doesn’t worry me at all.”