Town CEO Mark Ashton says striker Kayden Jackson will be staying with the Blues “if the stars align”, skipper Sam Morsy having said earlier in the week that he is “led to believe” that the 28-year-old will sign a new deal at Portman Road.
Jackson is out of contract in the summer but manager Kieran McKenna said recently that the 2018 £1.6 million signing from Accrington was someone he saw as part of the club’s future, the frontman having impressed him since he took over in December.
Speaking in a podcast with TWTD and Blue Monday, which can be watched in full below, Ashton was asked about Morsy’s comments.
"Sam must be the new head of recruitment!” he joked. "I think Kieran has made it clear that Kayden is someone he foresees being here so we’ll step through that process and as ever that takes a little bit of time and if all those stars line up then he’ll be here.
"I think it’s unfortunate that he got the injury that he did when he did but we’ll step through that.
"It’s difficult for me to talk about individuals specifically because it’s unfair to them but Kieran’s very clear on what he wants and we’ll do our very best to support him.”
Have talks started more generally with the club’s out of contract players? "No, not generally. We’ve got six games left and Kieran wants to keep things very focused on those six games, and that’s what we’ll do, and then we’ll pick those discussions up as and when we get to the point where we know where we’re going to be.”
Looking ahead to the club’s summer recruitment, Ashton says the Blues will be looking to recruit the same players whether they’re in the League One or the Championship rather than having two lists of potential targets.
"I can understand why you would say that, but I don’t think there is much difference,” he said.
"Kieran’s spent a lot of time with us, as have [assistant manager] Martyn Pert and [goalkeeper-coach] Rene Gilmartin and [head of analysis] Charlie Turnbull, talking about the physical attributes and the technical attributes of the players that he would like to see join this football club.
"One of the things that they’ve said is that they want to be consistent in their approach, so they want to recruit players into the football club that can go on the journey with them, that they can develop and take right the way through.
"It’s difficult, you can’t do that with every single player that you bring in but their philosophy is very sensible, very well presented and for us is a delight because when you’ve got a recruitment team they need absolute clarity on what they are trying to recruit.
"Alignment is absolutely key. Alignment from the ownership to Mike O’Leary to me and Kieran right at the top of the tree is absolutely vital.
"But that alignment right throughout the organisation to the players and the recruitment team is vital and I think one of the things you’ve seen with Kieran is that his communication doesn’t alter whether we win, lose or draw. He’s very consistent in his approach and that consistency makes our job to support him that much easier.”
League One clubs are restricted in what they can pay in wages by the division’s Salary Cap Management Protocol (SCMP) rules, however, Ashton says they won’t have an impact on Town in the summer ahead.
"No. I could spend an hour explaining in the intricacies of SCMP to you. It’s not a problem to us.”
Owner cash injections as opposed to loans are a way that clubs can increase what they’re able to pay out in wages, is that something that’s been utilised?
"There are a number of methods that have been used,” Ashton continued. "Someone said to me at an early Fans’ Forum that we don’t want to get a points deduction etc.
"There’s a fundamental difference between SCMP in League One and League Two and P&S [profit and sustainability] which is in the Championship and you’ve got to be very careful that you are planning for P&S when you’re at the top of League One because you’ve got to move between the two divisions.
"We wouldn’t be able to sign players if there an SCMP breach, that dialogue is ongoing with the EFL and there’s no issues. We know what our headroom is, we know the mechanisms that we would need to put money into the football club to make sure we have the headroom.
"And what people tend to forget about, go and look at the money we brought in this summer for the players we traded out. People forget that.
"We’re in a good place, we know what the financial plans are for next season and we’re stepping through that recruitment process for next season and it’s well under way now.
"It doesn’t suddenly start at the end of the season. We’ve been on that for a while and we’ll move forward swiftly.”