Blues boss Paul Lambert says he had a really good chat with owner Marcus Evans yesterday as he starts to formulate his plans for the January transfer window. TWTD revealed yesterday that Evans was at the club.
Lambert, speaking to Mark Murphy on BBC Radio Suffolk’s breakfast show, was asked whether he had anyone already in mind to come in in January.
"I’m trying to get Iniesta back from China, I need Ian [Milne] to speak to Marcus!” he joked. "It’s well-documented we need a little bit of help, without a doubt.
"But sometimes the best recruitment is not to bring anybody in because it upsets the applecart.
"We’re playing really well at the minute but that’s not to say you don’t look to see if somebody can help you. I'll only do it right, if it doesn’t put the club in a position and it doesn’t upset everything.”
He says he’s not one to make wholesale changes each window and he’s careful to bring in the right individuals.
"You can’t do it, it takes time to gel virtually a whole new team and plus you’ve so many different characters and you have to find out character-wise whether they’re going to come in here and upset everything or are they going to be good guys or not,” he said.
"You can’t have it [where people upset the dressing room], you can’t have it, it’s no good for the club or anybody and I think that’s important.
"In an ideal world you get to each transfer window and you bring a couple in rather than seven or eight, that’s far too many.”
Lambert reiterated that there are areas of his squad which need strengthening, most notably the attack where the Blues look short on numbers and experience.
He confirmed he met with Evans at Playford Road yesterday as well as Lee O’Neill, who we understand has taken on a more general football operations role while retaining his position as academy director.
"I think we’re unbalanced in a lot of areas if you look at it, that’s my own opinion, that’s no slight on anybody else’s,” he continued.
"I think we’re a little bit unbalanced in certain areas, we’re top heavy in some areas and we’re very, very light in other areas and if lads get injured or suspended we haven’t got the cover or the depth. So I think that’s something that needs to get fixed.
"But Marcus has been great. I had a really good chat with Marcus yesterday, and Lee, so we all know exactly where we want to go and know the strengths and weaknesses of it.”
Will Evans back him in January? "He’s been great, he’s been brilliant with me since I’ve been here. Now it’s up to us to drive the bus and get this place going.”
Lambert won the Champions League with Borussia Dortmund as a player leading to speculation that he might recruit from Germany.
Quizzed on whether that might be the case, he said: "Because I played there and had a successful time but I think what you’re seeing now is that the level of money has changed in the game and sometimes you have to look abroad to see what’s there as well.
"But they’ve got to be the right players for the club, you just can’t go and buy somebody that’s a really good player but is maybe a little bit difficult to manage. I don’t think that’s good for anybody. You have to get the right characters in the club and they have to want to be here. That’s important.”
Scotland has also been speculated as a source of affordable new recruits and Lambert says there are decent players in his homeland.
"Obviously you’ve got the big ones up there that are still strong but I think the Scottish game gets unfairly criticised at certain times,” he reflected.
"There are still one or two good players but whether you can get them nobody knows.
"But that’d up to me to try and see who I can actually get at the football club and try and get people into the football club that I think can do us a job.”