Town manager Mick McCarthy has backed the EFL’s decision to join the Premier League in closing this summer’s transfer window on the earlier date of Thursday 9th August, a few days after the start of the season.
EFL clubs will still be able to sign players on loan until the final day of the month and transfer players out to clubs playing in leagues where the window remains open.
McCarthy says he is was happy to hear that clubs voted in favour of the proposal earlier this week, although wasn’t entirely behind the idea when it was discussed earlier in the season.
"I went to a meeting of the League Managers Association, it was just a small meeting to discuss that subject and I went thinking, ‘No, they should leave it until the end [of August]’.
"But then as we discussed it I thought, ‘Well no’ because the Premier League, all their deals are done.
"We get loan players from the Premier League as most other teams do. All their business is finished on August 9th, so they can get all their business out of the way and then decide, ‘OK, now we can loan these players out’.
"Otherwise, it’s always left to the very last day when they’re saying, ‘If we get somebody in, we’ll loan him out’. Well, they’ve got three weeks to know which players they can loan out because all their business will be done.”
Town have four players on loan from Premier League clubs at present - Bersant Celina from Manchester City, Everton’s Callum Connolly, Cameron Carter-Vickers from Tottenham - as well as Dominic Iorfa from Championship Wolves.
Does McCarthy think there’s a chance any of them could return to Portman Road next season? "I don’t know. Already somebody has said to me there’s people interested in Bersant, and of course there will be, there’s bound to be.
"Cameron Carter-Vickers, I don’t know there. I think everybody will take them all on pre-season. The stock answer is, ‘We’ll take the on pre-season’ and now they can say, ‘We’ll keep them until August 9th and then we’ll let you know’. But at least then everybody’s got three weeks.
"But we can start that planning that if we can keep them at least we’ll know by August 9th.”