Manager Kieran McKenna and CEO Mark Ashton gave their assessment of the club’s summer transfer window at this evening’s Fans’ Forum.
The Blues signed seven new senior players, Jack Taylor, George Hirst, Cieran Slicker and Axel Tuanzebe on permanent deals and Omari Hutchinson, Dan Scarlett and Brandon Williams on loan.
"I think the transfer window was very much as we anticipated, 18 contracts in total, seven in, three re-contracts, five loans out, three departures, 18 in total,” Ashton said.
"One huge contract and the most important of which was Kieran [McKenna, who signed a deal which runs to the summer of 2027]. But I’m also delighted to announce that we’ve also agreed long-term contracts this week with Martyn Pert, Charlie Turnbull, Rene Gilmartin and Lee Grant in line with the length of Kieran’s contract.
"I think it was a solid window, the market was very much as we anticipated. It’s always tough and let’s be really clear, we’re transitioning from League One to the Championship. We have Financial Fair Play, P&S rules [Profit and Sustainability] that we have to abide by.
"They haven’t really caused us a massive problem, we’ve known what they are and we have to be very careful that if we make a decision this season where everyone goes ‘Wow, we’ve signed that player!’, then we have to sell two next season to balance the P&S position, so we have to be careful on what we do.
"But I think the alignment with Kieran has been really good, communication has been really good, I think the squad’s better.”
McKenna added: "As Mark said, the squad’s better. I was at training today and it was one of the first days that we’ve had everybody back in the building, apart from Samy Morsy, who was flying back [from international duty with Egypt] this afternoon, and certainly as a coaching staff we were looking at the group feeling really positive about how strong it looks and the depth and the competition we have.
"It’s a really delicate balance when you’re transitioning from one league to the next league and you’ve seen teams succeed and fail with different approaches.
"We’ve got a group of players who finished last season in an incredible record-breaking run of form and one of our priorities going into this window was that we wanted to keep that group together, keep that momentum together and give that group a chance to show that they can play at the next level.
"Partly because they deserve it, but also partly because we believe in them and we think they’ve earned that belief from the club and from the supporters to see what they can do and how they can impact the next level.
"That was always going to be one priority and one focus for the window, and on top of that, as I’ve said, we want and we need to keep adding players who fit our profile, who can develop with us and can improve the team and we managed to do that in a couple of cases.
"We’ve brought in, I think, three excellent loans, I have to say. I know in League One we didn’t rely too heavily on the loan market and we always want to have our base of players as much as possible, but in the Championship you have access to players that you can’t get on a permanent basis or it’s very, very difficult to get on a permanent basis within the restrictions Mark talks about.
"Utilising the loan market whilst still keeping the core nucleus of our group is going to be important for us over the next few windows and we feel that we’ve don that well.
"I think lots to learn, of course you always want to keep improving the squad as much as you can but we’re really positive about the group of players and the depth and the characters that we have in the building and the way they’re going to go about their business this season, the way have done so far and the way we believe they’ll continue to do so over the next few months.”