Town boss Mick McCarthy says the Blues are determined to hang on to their best players, including highly-rated young midfielder Andre Dozzell, but admits that you can never absolutely rule out someone moving on.
"It’s impossible that, I heard [Everton’s Romelu] Lukaku say he’s going and he’s under contract,” McCarthy reflected. "Nobody’s doing that here but people can be under contract and it still happens.”
Dozzell, 16, is understood to be interesting the likes of Arsenal, Spurs and West Ham, while Liverpool were reported to have started talks regarding the England U17 international earlier in the week, a claim McCarthy said he knew nothing about on Thursday.
His father Jason recently told TWTD that he believes Portman Road is the best place for his son, who travelled with the first-team squad for today's game at Sheffield Wednesday, at this stage of his career.
McCarthy added: "What I would say is that we don’t want to lose our best players, of any sort. And that’s been proven by [owner] Marcus [Evans] when Leicester were all over David McGoldrick [in the summer of 2014] and at the start of this season when there were teams all over Murph, bidding five, six, seven million quid.
"People wonder sometimes about the investment in players coming in, but what Marcus has always done is supported and made sure we kept our best players. That’ll be the case again.”
Dozzell is currently in the first year of a two-year scholarship and has agreed a two-year professional deal which will be formalised when he turns 16 on May 2nd.
While today’s opponents Sheffield Wednesday are amongst a number of clubs to have spent big this season, and added Aiden McGeady on loan from Everton and Gary Hooper on a permanent basis from Norwich in January, Town have continued to operate more frugally, although this year’s wage bill rose 15 per cent on last season and is up 25 per cent on the previous campaign.
McCarthy says there’s no point in him feeling envious of the greater resources available to other managers: "We’re not doing it so there’s no real point. I think all you end up doing is being bitter and twisted about it and I still maintain that if I have a role to do at the club within certain parameters, I go and do it.
"That’s exactly what I do and I do it to the best of my ability and generally do it particularly well, it’s just we’ve been having a tough time recently and all these other things will be thrown up into the mix yet again.”
He says discussions regarding the budget for next season will take place with owner Marcus Evans in the summer: "Absolutely, we can’t do anything about it now, so there’s no reason to be discussing it.”
Will he be citing the success of bigger spenders such as the Owls, Derby and Middlesbrough when he holds those talks?
"I would imagine that I don’t need to, Marcus is a very intelligent, very bright man,” he continued. "I don’t think he’ll need me to be underlining or putting anyone up as an example.
"And, of course, next season, if we’re going to be in this league, we’re going to have Newcastle, Sunderland and Aston Villa or Norwich, if Sunderland beat them they’ve got a chance of being caught but it’s looking pretty unlikely, I have to be honest. It’s going to get harder rather than easier.”