Boss Joe Royle says the Blues are no nearer to securing Jimmy Juan's services for next season. The Town manager is keen to sign the on-loan Monaco player permanently ahead of 2006/07.
The French club's sporting director Jean-Luc Ettori watched Juan in action against Millwall recently and plans another trip to the UK, possibly to Kenilworth Road on Saturday.
Juan, who has a year left on his current Monaco contract, is understood to be keen on a longer-term move to Town but Royle says little progress has been made up to now: "We've heard nothing back from them. We have kept in touch and the chairman speaks to both the club and the agent.
"They were going to come and see him again to make their minds up. We'll have to wait and see. We do want to keep him. All we can do is declare out intent and the rest of it is out of our hands."
If they are willing to sell him, Monaco are likely to demand a fee for the 22-year-old who has impressed in central midfield this season.
Royle has echoed chairman David Sheepshanks by stating that there will be no enforced Portman Road exits this summer: "We won't have to sell anybody. Any sales or any departures from here will be for football reasons.
"The facts are that we won't be selling anybody to keep things going financially. Those days are gone for the foreseeable future."
Season ticket sales are reported to be going well and Royle says that numbers reaching somewhere near this season's 18,000 mark will assist him in adding the likes of Ricardo Fuller to his squad over the summer: "There's no doubt about it, that will help.
"However, there are two sides to that in that you don't know who else is going to be interested in Ricardo Fuller. At least one Premiership manager has asked about his form since he's been here. That's not to say he would go there, but they have asked."
Royle has confirmed that he will consider making another loanee, defender Jay McEveley, a permanent signing: "We're going to look closely at him. He's on our doorstep and he likes it here, although there's still the little matter of Blackburn, who have still got a year of his contract, but you never know."
The Town boss has said on a number of occasions that he wants to add a central defender to his squad, although he says Chris Casement has done so well of late that he could change his mind: "We might have found the centre-half from within. At the moment Chris Casement is making outstanding progress. That's not to say we're trying to do it on the cheap, but his progress has been quite extraordinary in the second half of the season.
"He was our best player at Tottenham [in the reserves] the other night. He was terrific against people like Andy Reid running at him with the ball, so I'd like to give him a chance before the end of the season."
But even if he doesn't make additions to his squad, Royle expects the Blues to be very competitive in 2006/07: "If we go into next season with the squad we have now I will feel very confident, certainly a lot happier than I was after the QPR game at the beginning of this season when I thought the squad was a bit short."