Shrewsbury chief executive Brian Caldwell says ideally his club would like to keep Blues targets Jon Nolan and Toto Nsiala and doesn't need to sell them, but admits the duo “are not focused on playing for Shrewsbury” having handed in transfer requests following Town’s joint-bid, which emerged earlier this afternoon. Caldwell, who refused to confirm the identity of the interested club, although as revealed earlier TWTD can confirm it is Ipswich, says the offer was turned down and he has given the other club his valuation of the pair.
"A Championship club contacted us yesterday and put an offer in by text message to myself for the two players, which obviously didn’t reach our valuation,” Caldwell outlined in an interview with BBC Radio Shropshire.
"We looked at the valuations quite closely the chairman and I and we discussed it even last season with [former Shrews manager and current Town boss] Paul [Hurst] and I think we all kind of knew what parameters we were looking at if we had to sell the players.
"However, what I would say is that we don’t need to sell the players, we’re not needing cash like a lot of football clubs, we don’t want to sell the players and this is totally out of our control.
"The players today have obviously got wind of everything through their agents etc and maybe perhaps the other club, shall I say, which I’m sure has been going on behind everybody’s back.
"And they’ve now handed in transfer requests, obviously in an effort to force us to sell. But, one, we don’t to sell, two, we don’t need the money and the third thing is they’ve not met the valuation and we’re not going to sell them on the cheap.”
He added: "In an ideal world we would have liked them to stay but at the end of the day we always need to be focused on the best interests of Shrewsbury Town Football Club and we want players who want to play here, that want to play for the football club and don’t just want to jump ship at the first opportunity.
"Obviously, any bids need to reach our valuation, we don’t want to be selling players on the cheap.”
Caldwell, who says the offer was the first time he has received a bid by text in 25 years in the game, wouldn’t confirm that Town were the club involved, however, he said regarding his club’s former manager Hurst: "Obviously Paul’s been linked with players he knows well from his time here. Obviously three days before we kick-off the new season on Saturday it isn’t great timing for anybody.
"But I’m standing strong here that the valuation that we all feel is the right valuation for the players will be the valuation we’ll accept.”
The Shrews chief says the situation could develop quickly in the next day or so with the Blues keen to strengthen their squad before Saturday’s opening game and if not certainly prior to the transfer window closing next Thursday.
"Anything’s possible in football, things change in minutes, never mind days,” he conceded. "I think it’s possible.
"At the moment I’ve gone back to the other club and explained where I value the players at. I’ve explained that we don’t need the money and I’ve explained that I don’t want to sell the players.
"But obviously we’re in a situation that the players are not focused on playing for Shrewsbury Town and we want players who are focused on playing for Shrewsbury Town.”
He says he’s not yet had a response from Town to rejection of the joint-offer, which some Shropshire sources are reporting to have been £1.4 million: "No, we got the bid yesterday, I went back to them with the valuation which I felt was more appropriate to the levels than they’ve put in and haven’t had any feedback to that as yet.”