Boss Kieran McKenna has spoken about the four boxes potential Blues signings have to tick and the club’s plans to grow into the international transfer market.
Town signed seven players during the summer transfer window, all domestic additions with a number of them, like earlier additions, having backgrounds at the academies of big Premier League clubs.
At last night’s Fans’ Forum at Portman Road, McKenna was asked what he looks for in new signings.
"I think there are a lot of different variables and that will vary across positions and areas of the pitch,” he said.
"The main four criteria whenever we’ve identified the players that I’d like to target is quite simple. It’s young, hungry, athletic and technical players as the base of our recruitment and we want to sign and invest in players that tick those four boxes.
"Of course, you need to step outside that sometimes. You need a balance in a squad that somebody like a Massimo Luongo, who wouldn’t thank me for saying it, but maybe doesn’t tick the young box but has brought so much to the football club. So, of course, you can step out of that.
"But I think we can identify some of the signings that we’ve made in the last few windows who would tick those four boxes and have gone onto be really good players for the team, and I think really good assets for the football club going forward.
"Those are the areas that we want. The reason why we want to do it us because every level that we’re at, we want to have players who we feel can perform for us at that level but also grow and go with us to the next level.
"In League One, that was bringing in players that we thought would be able to perform in League One but also could step up to the Championship with us and continue to develop as the team developed and improve their performances and as a club we could improve their value.
"And I think we’ve seen that already with how the players have performed in the early part of this season and I think for us at this level, it’ll be the same challenge and, of course, it gets harder, but we’re trying to find players that can perform for us in the Championship but also can grow and improve with the team and hopefully some day represent this club in the Premier League.
"Whether it’s players coming out of academies and big clubs, that’s one really good market for us, but there are other markets for us.
"The international market, that’s something we want to grow in over the next few windows but it’s always trying to tick those four boxes and bring in players who can perform for us now but also grow as we try and grow this team and this club.”
Regarding the international market, which had been more closed for clubs post-Brexit but was opened up by a Home Office agreement with the FA over the summer.
"It’s something that we probably spoke about last year and it’s something that we are having a lot of ongoing discussions about internally, about how we improve and develop the squad over the next few windows,” McKenna continued.
"And international markets are one avenue to do that. Most football clubs would agree that it’s great to have a homegrown basis, it’s great to have players from the local area like we do, it’s great to have players and a core from your country.
"But also to take the team and the club to another level, we need to be really vigilant of players outside our market because the premium on British players is really high and there are only so few players who can fall into our catchment and there is a lot of competition for those players.
"Bringing in and developing the players with international players who fit the brackets that I spoke about is something that we’d like to do.
"It’s not a process to take lightly. Of course, we’d all like to be there now and be able to identify and bring in players from all over the world, but it needs to be right.
"We spoke about it a lot in League One and there were some options we could have done in League One, but in general we made a pretty conscious decision as a club that League One is a really hard division to integrate international players into because pitches, because of some of the standards of certain things and it wouldn’t be an easy league to integrate international players into.
"We feel that the Championship is a better league to do that and that is more of a possibility going forward for is.
"There are a lot of things you have to consider, you have to consider how long they will take to settle, what sort of period of time you can afford to give them. You have to be set up from a logistical point of view in terms of families coming over, maybe players with children or younger players coming over who have to settle into a new country, learn the language, all these things.
"It’s an area that we want to be increasingly competitive in and it’s about making sure now that everything is set up as best we can so when we do recruit from that market that we can give the players that come in the absolute best chance of succeeding.”
Town’s chief operating officer Luke Werhun says there are risks when it comes to signing overseas players.
"I think from previous experience, myself and [CEO] Mark [Ashton] from other clubs, we’ve had experience of recruiting from abroad and with that, as Kieran said, there come other things to consider, family off the pitch, integration into the local community, local culture,” he said.
"We are looking to invest further in that area, so we can help players integrate into the local set-up.
"We’ve had experience in the past where we’ve had players come over, very, very good players technically but really felt homesick, didn’t feel integrated, part of the country and it’s failed.
"Whereas domestic players, you generally know what you’re getting but there’s a premium to that, unfortunately, so we’ve got to try and strike the balance between the two.”