Lambert: We Targeted Wickham - Ipswich Town News
Blues boss Paul Lambert has revealed he made a loan approach for ex-Town striker Connor Wickham in January but with the 26-year-old Crystal Palace frontman well beyond the club financially.
Asked whether he had any regrets about not signing a striker in the January window, Lambert said: "We couldn’t get one. We tried for a lot of guys. I enquired about the lad Connor Wickham, who was here. Dear oh dear, we couldn’t get anyone in.
"The ones I did go for, to help the guys, incredible, we don’t have the money to go and do it.
"Ideally would we have got people in to help? Aye, we would have but we couldn’t get anybody in that was in our bracket.”
Quizzed further on the approach for Wickham, Lambert added: "I enquired about him, [general manager of football operations] Lee [O'Neill] spoke to the agent, but the money was… wow!
"It wasn’t just him I looked at, there were a few guys a looked at but the level was incredibly high.
"It’s not realistic, we just felt we need a little bit of help in certain areas to try and get us through it but it just never materialised.”
However, he says he is confident that the strikers he has at the club are capable of scoring the goals required to climb back up the table and be in the running come May.
"They’ve done it before, that’s why I know it’s in them," he said. "We have to take chances when we’re on top.”
Wickham eventually joined Championship Sheffield Wednesday on loan on deadline day.
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