Town chief executive Derek Bowden says the Blues will listen to offers for fringe players during the January transfer window and has confirmed that the club would have been forced to sell players in the summer but for Marcus Evans's takeover.

Bowden told TWTD that there could be departures on top of the likely exits of on-loan trio Matt Richards, Dan Harding and Billy Clarke: "It would be reasonable to assume that one or two of the loanees would go and it may be that we would listen to offers for some of the others because we've got a very big squad.

"What we don't need to do is what we have needed to do in the past, which is sell players to balance the budget. We don't have to sell anyone to balance the budget.

"But for the takeover we would have been a selling club in the summer without any doubt because we couldn't have carried on with the cashflow the way that it was. There are a number of clubs in this division who are suffering from that.

"The good news is that we're not one of them and we can hold on to a very large squad if we want to, but it's probably too big at the moment and if we get the right offers for the right players then we'll listen to them. But offers for players we don't want to sell, we won't listen to.”

Town will also be looking to add to their squad when the transfer window opens and Bowden says chief scout Steve McCall and international scout Simon Hunt are currently looking at the South American market: "They are in Argentina at the moment for two weeks. They're putting a dossier together for us to review at the end of this month ahead of January.

"Simon's done a lot of work in Europe historically and he's spent the last six months travelling around the continent. The last part of the jigsaw is South America and Argentina is particularly interesting as there are a lot of players with EU passports, which makes it a lot easier for them to come here. It's certainly a lot easier than Brazil or Uruguay.”

Bowden says this is part of an ongoing process: "It's a long-term project. We were never going to bring players in from too far afield in July or August because we hadn't done the preparation. That's what we've been doing for the last six months and we'll carry on for the next six through the next window.

"We're looking to get our ducks in a row in mainland Europe, including Eastern Europe, and South America before we go any further afield.”

Owner Marcus Evans recently revealed that his total outlay on the club has so far been £20 million. Bowden says that the money available for Jim Magilton to spend in January will be on top of this figure.

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