Boss Mick McCarthy believes there is no chance of former striker Daryl Murphy returning to the Blues on loan from Newcastle United in January. The Town manager, who will target a replacement for the 33-year-old in January, has no regrets about allowing the Irishman to move on, despite admitting it has had an impact on the season with his side having scored only 17 times in their first 19 games.
Murphy has made only one start and one sub appearance, both in the EFL Cup, since moving to the Magpies, a calf injury having hampered him during the opening few months of his spell but despite this, and contrary to rumour, McCarthy doesn't anticipate him being made available and rejoining the Blues.
"No, and I say that speaking on behalf of [Newcastle manager] Rafa [Benitez]," McCarthy said.
"Because if you’re going for promotion, it doesn’t matter what you’re spending on the players, if you’re at the top of the league and you spend zillions and you’re looking like you’re going to earn zillions, why would you even consider getting shot of a striker that might score you a winner at some stage? If you’re in Newcastle’s position and can afford to keep them all.
"They just pick them at random - ‘He’s playing today’. No, no chance, he won’t be going anywhere.
"Should I say there’s always a place for him here, just in case? I’ll put my sandwich board up!”
After it was pointed out that Murphy could score against some of the Magpies’ promotion rivals if he were to return to Town, the Blues boss added: "I know, could do, but I’m double guessing a lot of people if that was the case.
"And there’s whether he’d want to come back, of course. There’s that as well. He’s had his time, he’s had his success here.
"And he’s left and he’s got his big move and it looks like he’s going to the Premier League, I think that would be [reason to stay where he is].
"I’m always open to suggestions from Rafa if he fancies that, he might lend me a few others as well so we can help beat all the teams around him.”
McCarthy says he has no regrets about selling Murphy in a £3 million deal which was completed three days before the August transfer window closed with Town unable to sign a replacement before the deadline.
"No, I don’t,” he insisted. "It was the right deal for the club. Are we missing him now? Yes we are. He scored 27 goals once.
"I remember when I joined here nobody was bothered whether he signed or not. In fact they were happy to see him go. I think when I signed him it was a bit, ‘Oh dear, Daryl Murphy’.
"Now he’s gone and because he had that one blistering season everybody will look at that and will blame that.
"That is a good deal for the club, we should be able to invest that money at some stage to get another striker. We’ll see.
"But it was going to be almost impossible to keep him at 33 with the wages he was going to be paid and the contract he was going to get and the club he was going to.
"It would have been hard for him to play here, to motivate him and play after all of that.
"It was the right deal but, yes, we’re missing him. So we’ve got to get somebody else who is going to change everybody else’s mind, just like we did when Murph scored his 27. He changed everybody’s opinion.”
He admits that no one currently on the staff can fill the former Sunderland, Celtic and Waterford frontman’s boots.
"Not that can score 27 goals, no, if you’re asking me that,” McCarthy continued. "Can they get in [the team] and score goals, yes they can. Reg [Luke Varney] has done it, Leon Best hasn’t yet.
"But are they going to score 27 goals? You look through their history. I’m being asked a question and I’m not going to say anything damning against them, but I doubt either of them have scored 27 throughout their careers.
"So that’s not going to happen and it’s not going to happen with the way we are playing at the minute and the chances we’re creating.
"But can they get in and score on Saturday? Yes they can, and that’s what’s important to me.”
He added: "We need to get goals, wherever they come from. We’ve only scored 17 and that’s not good enough. We desperately need some.”
With that in mind, McCarthy says the plan is still very much to try to sign a replacement for Murphy in January: "That’s what I’d like to do. But expectations and firm guarantees are pretty different.”
He says the money is there to make the signing - "I haven’t spent it, have I?” - referring to the Murphy fee, adding: "I would like to replace him in January. I was asked earlier about goals and whether we could replace those goals and I said I would like to replace those goals with someone, of course I would, whoever that might be.
"That is the case. Whether that’s X million pounds is another matter, but I’d like to replace the goals, of course.”
Meanwhile, McCarthy says he never progressed his interest in Dundalk winger Daryl Horgan, who reports yesterday claimed was close to joining Preston, despite watching him in action a fortnight ago.
"We looked but they’ve had everybody looking, so we didn’t take it any further than that,” he said.