Blues boss Paul Jewell says new centre-half Ibrahima Sonko is in great condition and ready to join fellow signings Jimmy Bullard and Daryl Murphy in the Town side which faces Leeds at Portman Road on Saturday. The trio trained with their new team-mates this morning.

Jewell sad: “He’s in fantastic condition. He’s been training with Reading and they had offered him a contract and I think Nottingham Forest were in for him.

“Luckily we tweeted each other and he came and played in the game on Tuesday. That’s a joke, by the way, I haven’t got Twitter!

“It’s been going on and I’ve been trying to keep it under the radar really. He’s one with experience. He heads it, he kicks it, he’s strong, he’s aggressive and hopefully he’ll bring in those qualities as we’ve been lacking them.”

The Blues boss is also pleased to have brought Daryl Murphy back to Portman Road on loan from Celtic: “He knows the surroundings and he gives us a bit of versatility. He can play down the middle, wide left, wide right.

“He’s big, he gives us options and can get hold of the ball. I think we’ve probably relied on Michael Chopra too much, asking him to score a goal every time he gets the ball.

“He just gives us that bit of experience and quality. I know he scored after 21 seconds of his debut, so hopefully he can do it again.”

Jewel confirmed that he has spoken to Stoke about two players, almost certainly Ryan Shotton and Danny Collins, and says there could be movement on that front next month when Football League clubs are able to bring players in on 'emergency' loans: “We’ve been in contact with Stoke about a couple of their players and for different reasons it’s not happening at the moment.

“Stoke are in the Europa League, then they play Sunday, then the transfer window closes. I think Stoke are trying to bring players in like every other Premier League club.

“And when they’ve brought players in and they know what they’ve got, it might be easier for us to get some players. That’s the same with every Premier League team and I was exactly the same when I was a Premier League manager.”

Jewell confirmed that, as reported by TWTD yesterday, former Czech U21 international holding midfielder Jiří Bílek is on trial and also revealed that Costa Rican international central defender Francisco Calvo is also at the club: “Jiri’s from Kaiserslautern.

"He’s done very well in training. The game was a little bit different for him, but we’ve got the best of a week to have a look at him. We’ve also got Francisco Calvo here, a, 19-year-old who came from Costa Rica.”

Calvo, who has been capped three times by his country, currently plays for San Jacinto Coyotes, a college team in the United States.

The Town manager says no decision has yet been made on recent Slovenian trialist Aljaž Struna: “We’re monitoring his progress.”

Richard Wright was training with the squad again this morning, but Jewell once again played down the chances of the former Blue rejoining the club, at least in the short-term, with the Town boss looking for a "young keeper" as cover for David Stockdale and Arran Lee-Barrett.

Midfielder Lee Bowyer is a doubt ahead of Saturday’s game with his hamstring problem and was training away from the main group, while defender Ívar Ingimarsson is definitely ruled out. Striker Tamás Priskin has suffered a recurrence of the knee injury which ended his loan spell at Swansea last season but was unlikely to be involved in any case.

Tommy Smith and Lee Martin are both sidelined as they are banned for one and three matches respectively for their red cards at Peterborough.

Photo: Action Images

bobble added 12:40 - Aug 25 wheres me bottle of rum ?
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blueoff added 12:42 - Aug 25 Let's hope they are worth waiting for, it's a shame we had to be humiliated before action was taken but hey onward and upward
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MathieandMarshall added 12:43 - Aug 25 Lets hope Sonko can carry Damo as well as G Mac used to on Saturday. Things are starting to look much more promising.
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Alwaysablue added 12:44 - Aug 25 Turning point now, up we go!
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ITFC4daprem added 12:45 - Aug 25 Just Wright now
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Mark added 12:49 - Aug 25 Sonko is probably the most important of the three signings going into Saturday, as we just could not start with Ainsley at centre back again! Hopefully he will go onto be a good player for us, and a snip on a free transfer. Murphy's height will help us, as I noticed in the Southampton game that we were very poor at winning anything in the air from the goal kicks. If we keep giving the ball back to the opposition from those, we are asking for trouble. So, I'm really pleased to have Murphy back. Calvo sounds interesting, a 19-year-old with full international caps. According to Wiki, he is a left-back or centre-back. Exciting times!

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Dog added 12:53 - Aug 25 Wright is not the answer. We need to sign a realtively young goalkeeper and allow him to mature with Town, someone like Joe Lewis from Peterborough. Hopefully the Triallists will do something, it would be good if one did as i cannot recall the last one. As for Murphy - i think this could be a good signing. Would seem like a very good foil for Chpora.
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tortoise added 12:59 - Aug 25 Have to say, i am still nervous about saturday. A good, well organised team should not concede 12 goals in 2 games even with 2 dodgy central defenders! I think the players we have brought in are good, but it can take a while to perform as a team. Look at Leicester struggling and relatively settled teams like Brighton and Southampton doing well. I think we will have a shout of the play offs this year, but still fear it may take us a while to get going (and one more decent centre back!)

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arablue added 13:01 - Aug 25 Don't think the signings are purely down to knee jerk reaction to the thrashing we had. If anything, it helped speed things up on the transfer front. Can't wait for those emergency loanee CBs from prem league...shotton can defend and what about those cross-like free throws; not in delap's class but still a handful!
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Adrian_Paz_Uses_Daz added 13:03 - Aug 25 Couple from Stoke soon aswell then, Delayney and his disproportionately small sized head out!!
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arablue added 13:07 - Aug 25 Anybody got any tweets from sonko? Do you tweet Phil?
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StowTractorBoy added 13:09 - Aug 25 I rate Sonko but the thought of him and Delaney together worries me. Would give Kennedy a go on the left who can talk Sonko through as he reads the game.
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petieboy2011 added 13:26 - Aug 25 Ahhh I finally get it. The Carling cup exit followed by 3 league defeats was just to get the other teams in the division into a false sense of security and we will now go shooting up the league! Well we can only hope anyway. Welcome aboard Sonko, welcome back Murphy and welcome home Mr Bullard!! *Cue high sales of blond curly wigs!
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bedsitfc added 13:26 - Aug 25 phil why is jewell sad? ?? lol ^^^^^^
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arc added 13:37 - Aug 25 Bloody hell, there's a lot of news here. I am not sure I can cope.
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Bluetone added 13:39 - Aug 25 When the going gets tough ME gets the cheque book out.
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footyblue added 13:47 - Aug 25 still need a CB and a RB but all looking a lot better than a week ago
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Keaneish added 13:52 - Aug 25 So it's... Stockdale Ainsley Sonko Delaney Cresswell Edwards Bullard Andrews JET Murphy Chopra
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ipswich_is_the_best added 13:53 - Aug 25 So, have sonko and murphy actually signed if so how long is sonkos deal All to confusing 4 me
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tellitasiseeit added 13:57 - Aug 25 DOG- made a point regarding a young goalkeeper.We have already got one of the hottest prospects in young Cody Cropper or have people not been watching his progress with town. I am sure Paul Jewell has some plans for this young man. But perhaps needs to keep a tight lid on the subject for now? Has played for reserves and has not been in a loosing side as yet ,and with a very good record. Keep your eyes and ears open on this one?

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Ryorry added 14:23 - Aug 25 Welcome to PR Sonko and well done to keep yourself fit, we've never needed a solid defender as much as we do now!
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RRanger added 14:54 - Aug 25 Just to put a slight dampener on all the good news just read (on Leeds website) that our favourite ref (Andy D'urso) is in charge on Saturday.
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Mr_Evans added 15:00 - Aug 25 I hope he gets abused for his awful website; ibrahimasonko.com
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1979blue added 15:31 - Aug 25 Very good signing IMO hopefully he can discover the form he had at reading, not Stoke!
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TractorTrog added 16:14 - Aug 25 Bring Richard Naylor Back( he has now been released by Leeds( as a coach show some true grit to our players one of the best at putting it on the opposition
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