Town boss Mick McCarthy says it doesn’t matter what a player costs just that they’re good footballers. The Blues manager confirmed the addition of Polish centre-half or right-back Piotr Malarczyk yesterday, for a bargain fee understood to be in the region of £8,500.
Having previously brought in left-back Tyrone Mings for £10,000 and a reserves friendly from Chippenham Town, before selling him this summer for £8 million, and making innumerable Bosman free signings since taking over at Town, the Blues boss has a history of making astute additions for little or no outlay in terms of fees.
"He’s a good player, first and foremost,” he said regarding Malarczyk, while neither confirming nor denying the £8,500 figure, which is understood to have been the buy-out figure included in a new contract the 24-year-old signed in June, a nominal fee which would allow him to move to a foreign club if an offer came in.
"It doesn’t matter what they cost if they’re good players. I was just sat watching the sport this morning and I said to the lads that I’m not sure I’d like to be putting my name to somebody at 58 million quid [the reported fee Manchester City are to pay for Wolfsburg’s Kevin De Bruyne]! Wow!
"I bring them in on frees and I think ‘I hope they work out, I hope we’re not paying him for two or three years and he turns out to be a chump!’. Heaven knows what I’d be thinking if I’d paid 58 million quid.
"I’m not so sure you ever get a chump for that but you don’t always get what you think you’re getting.”
Having largely signed players from the domestic market since taking charge at Portman Road, more recently he has brought in Jonas Knudsen from Esbjerg in Denmark and now Malarczyk from Korona Kielce in Poland.
He says there’s been no deliberate change of approach: "I never made a conscious decision not to [look at the foreign market]. I’m of the view that if somebody recommends somebody to me I’ll have a look at him.
"If I get an email about someone I’ll have a look or if somebody’s seen somebody I’ll have a look and I’ll invite them in for a trial if I have to. Some I’ve won, some I’ve lost but I think I’m in profit on them, to be honest.”
Despite being without Christophe Berra and Jonny Parr going into today’s game with Malarczyk not expected to be available, McCarthy says he’s still got a number of defensive options.
"In terms of the experienced ones [we’re short, but] not really when I’ve had lads like Josh Emmanuel and Myles Kenlock play as well as they have, and Josh Yorwerth. I’m cool with that, we’ve got really good back-up.”
Another player who impressed McCarthy at Doncaster on Tuesday was winger Larsen Touré.
"He’s a good player, I’ve no doubt about him whatsoever,” he enthused. "He puts a right shift in as well. He’s a talented player, I’m delighted I got him, really pleased.”
After confirming that Malarczyk was signing McCarthy said there was one more deal he was looking to do before the transfer window closes on Tuesday, which was presumably winger Tommy Oar, who is set to put pen to paper over the weekend.
The Town boss expects a quiet deadline day, aside from loan interest in his fringe players: "Unless somebody wants one of mine on loan or something but even then I’ll be on the phone. I won’t be too busy.”
And he doesn’t expect to be in the market for loan additions when the emergency provision is open to him in just over a week’s time.
"I doubt very much I’ll be entering into that not when I get Christophe, Murph, Bish Kevin Bru and Jonny Parr back to go with the ones that we’ve got,” he said. "I’ll probably have a squad of 23. I won’t need anybody else.”
McCarthy says he's not yet giving the Capital One Cup tie at Manchester United too much thought, although he admits it means there'll be a lot of games in a short period.
"I was talking about having Josh [Emmanuel] and Myles [Kenlock] and all these lads because we play Friday, Wednesday, Saturday and we’ll need all the squad," he said.
"I think it’s a great tie for us. It’s one of those where you go up and if we win everybody thinks we’re great and if we don’t win we’re not expected to win.
"It’s not a great pressure game. If we were travelling up to Carlisle there’d be much more pressure to win.
"It’s a fixture we can enjoy and look forward to. But we’re playing Brighton, I don’t get involved in all that.
"We know what we’re at, that’s just a nice fixture coming up but we’ve got a few games before then.”