Blues manager Paul Lambert says he’ll be looking at the Bosman market in the summer and says the move of that type that he made was the best thing he ever did in his career.
"That’s what we’d have to do, but that doesn’t bother me,” he said when asked if he’d be utilising the Bosman market during the close season.
"I don’t really care, to be honest about it. We’ll just try and build a team here in a structure where the young ones are going to be really exciting but they need that time and that development to progress.
"There are some really good footballers here and they’re getting better, and we look a really good side, we just need a little bit more at the top end. But that’s immaterial because I know where the club is.”
While some fans see Bosman signings as other team’s cast-offs, he says that can be far from the case, citing his own career.
"The Bosman rule did me the world of good, there you go. Without the Bosman ruling I wouldn’t have moved to Borussia Dortmund [after leaving Motherwell in 1996] and won the Champions League [in 1997], so it doesn’t bother me one iota because I know what it’s like because it happened to myself.
"Some guy can take a knock in his career and go back or he leaves on the Bosman ruling which he’s entitled to do.
"I used it 20-odd years ago and it was the best thing I ever did because it gave me that status of playing with the best team in Europe.”
Will there be some wheeling and dealing in the summer, selling some players to allow others to come in? "There are a lot of lads on loan, there are six lads here on loan, lads out of contract. Again, the structure has to be right.
"Why do we have to go and buy a player when it stops one of the young ones coming through? That’s where it goes all wrong.
"We have to get players in we think can hit the ground running right away rather than blocking one of the young ones’ path. That’s important.”
Lambert says the squad will certainly be smaller next season. "Yes, definitely. I think there are too many players, as everybody knows. It will definitely be a smaller squad.”