Town manager Paul Jewell says target Jason Pearce’s weekend comments regarding his proposed move from Portsmouth illustrate the Pompey central defender’s character. The Blues boss is hoping to sign Pearce and team-mates Joel Ward and Stephen Henderson before today’s 11pm deadline.

Jewell said: “That shows the way he is committed to the club that pays his wages at the moment. I think what he’s saying is that it’s out of his hands, that he hasn’t asked for a move.

“He’s playing for Portsmouth and he’s a Portsmouth player, so he’s entitled to say that. That doesn’t mean to say that he wouldn’t be interested in going to Real Madrid or whoever it might be.

“I think that shows the lad has decent character. I think it would be disrespectful for him to talk about leaving a football club while he was playing in that team. I wouldn’t read too much into that, one way or the other.”

While the Town boss remains hopeful of making signings before the window closes this evening, he doesn’t expect to get all his trio of Pompey targets: “It’s not dead but, by the sounds of it, it will be difficult to get all three.”

If he doesn’t get his first choices, he says he’s not going to sign just anyone instead: “I think it’s important to target the players you want and not to get players in because we’re in the situation we’re in, looking down the barrel.

“It’s critical to get the right ones. It’s easy to bring in players. I could buy players today that wouldn’t improve us.

“But it’s important to try and hold your nerve,” he continued. “I know everyone wants us to improve, no one more than me, but I still think you’ve got to try and have more of a long-term vision if you can and think that if we can’t get the players in in this window, can we get through to the summer and get them then?

“The most important thing is winning matches and it’s not as if we’ve got a team full of mugs. We’ve got a team which hasn’t over the season produced its best over enough games, but it’s a team which can be full of good players.”

Jewell is no fan of the transfer window, or the fact that there are fixtures on its final day: “It’s ridiculous that there are games on Tuesday and Wednesday — and the Premier League is the same — when the deadline is Tuesday at 11pm.”

He says the window is making doing business more difficult: “I think it’s getting harder and harder because the transfer window forces everything into a bottleneck.

“In the old days I think it was the last Thursday in March you couldn’t sign players after, which I think was better because you could buy and sell players right throughout the season when you needed them. Now you’re thinking you need someone just in case.

“Having said that, in the Football League, the loan market is open to us. So, when the window closes on Tuesday at 11pm, it opens for loans next week, so it’s not as final as in the Premier League.”

The Liverpudlian admits it’s easier to sell a player a club which is higher in the league but feels Town are still a draw despite their current lowly position: “It’s always easier selling your club if you’re top of the league rather than you are if you’re at the bottom, but I still think Ipswich is a club that people regard as a big club.

“OK, it’s going through a tough time at the moment but hopefully we can sell them the vision that we have that we want to be in the Premier League. The club’s been there before, it’s got great facilities, great support.

“There are a lot of boxes it ticks at the moment, but the one that isn’t ticked is the league position, but hopefully people can see beyond that and see that Ipswich is still an attractive proposition.

“I want people to come here for the right reasons, not just because it’s a nice club and it’s a nice area. We want people to come here hungry and ambitious to take the club forward.”

Jewell says the final day of the transfer window can see deals come about very quickly: “It’s amazing how things happen. We might get a couple of phone calls out of the blue about a couple of our players and things fall into place. You just don’t know.

“That’s the nonsense of it, everyone’s working against the deadline and everything seems to be crammed into the last 48 hours. I would say, don’t be surprised if there are surprises.”

Photo: Action Images

Ridgeboy83 added 08:22 - Jan 31 Hmmmm don't like the sound of this! But I do agree we need to get the right players in who want to play for the shirt and not take an easy ride .
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billlm added 08:22 - Jan 31 be a surprise if theres any surprise
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Duncan added 08:26 - Jan 31 Agree, we only want players to improve us! Don't think I've ever been this nervous on the last day of a transfer window, good luck for tonight, we gona need it!!!
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irishtim added 08:28 - Jan 31 WE need a centre half pj. This is going on too long.
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itfc1981 added 08:30 - Jan 31 My God are there players out that would not improve our defence?
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Stato added 08:39 - Jan 31 None of us fans no truth of how our management team are conducting themselves behind the scenes but just seems to be that we have seen so many of our own players leave with little resistence but so many targets slip through our fingers to other clubs. I can only imagine we aren't putting enough money on the table or surely we'd be getting the players we want. If Evans truly believed in Jewell wouldn't he back him in the transfer market. I've given my kids more pocket money in January than Evans has given Jewell.

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lawshallgirls added 08:41 - Jan 31 The amount of times he mentions 'window' 'window closing' or '11pm' in that On the other hand wouldn't mind Magnus Okoangae Henderson Joel Ward And a left sided center half
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oldbri added 08:58 - Jan 31 BossMan,can you please adopt me.I need a new ipod.
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roytheboy added 09:01 - Jan 31 Paul is preaching largely to the converted by much of what he is saying, of course we don't want to sign the wrong players just for the sake of appeasing us supporters, that has happened before I feel and is possibly part of the current problem, I acknowledge that this also has happened prior to Paul's appointment of course, however thirty days have already passed in January so we need not have put ourselves under the pressure of last day signings. Well January 31st has now arrived, I'm still hoping that something positive is happening behind the scenes, if not I fear that today could prove pivotal regarding the future of our club, everyone knows that our defending has been extremely poor lately, yet little appears to have been done about it, I will be at the match tonight but I cannot really say that I'm looking forward to it, that's most unusual, let's just hope that one way or the other, we can survive this season, COYB.

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BlueGoonie added 09:06 - Jan 31 Get the feeling we'll be lucky if we get one of the Pompey 3, in which case it must be Pearce. Be good if Wallace signs but that won't help us stay up this season. I'll be hitting this site all bloody day though...
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shaunminx added 09:09 - Jan 31 Well Paul you've been in your job for over a year now and in all that time we've needed a right back yet no right back has arrived. The majority of the time we've needed at least one central defender more probably two yet one of the two that did arrive was a six foot midget that has now been paid off and left the club and the other is now having a horror show. Any other profession and people would've been kicked out long ago. Stop talking all this bull and start delivering or just walk away please.

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Rossm added 09:15 - Jan 31 That shows the way he is committed to the club that pays his wages at the moment. I think what he's saying is that it's out of his hands, that he hasn't asked for a move. They arnt even paying his wages!
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Ozzie_OwDoo added 09:20 - Jan 31 Agree that we need to make sure we get the right players in, but what I have difficulty with right now is why is that we are still talking about bringing players in on the very last day of the transfer window. We all knew that we needed players in way before the window opened and Clegg & Co should've been scouting / targeting players then, with a plan to signing them early in the window. Leicester have already signed three players? We should not be in this last minute rush situation.

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cornishblu added 09:23 - Jan 31 Getting V nervous........see list below Leicester City have completed the signing of Nottingham Forest defender Wes Morgan for an undisclosed fee, believed to be about £1m. The 27-year-old, who was out of contract at the end of the season, has signed a two-and-a-half year deal. Morgan is City boss Nigel Pearson's third signing of the January transfer window following the arrivals of Danny Drinkwater and Nathan Delfouneso. QPR QPR close to £4m Cisse transfer SOUTHAMPTON Sharp completes Saints move CHELSEA De Bruyne set for Chelsea medical EVERTON Everton agree Greek defender deal LEICESTER Morgan completes Leicester move SCOTLAND Boyd agrees contract at Portland BOLTON Bolton bid for Palace star Zaha IRISH Lafferty agrees move to Burnley SUNDERLAND O'Neill confirms bid for Davies BOURNEMOUTH Cherries sign Crawley's Tubbs HIBERNIAN Hibs chase Ibrox trialist Claros KILMARNOCK Celtic's Toshney loaned to Killie ......how can these clubs get deals sorted out so quickly and yet we struggle??...Leicester sign another CB ....wonder what SstL thinks of that!!...bournemouth sign tubbs!! .....come on Clegg and PJ not down to the wire again....we need some GREAT news before tonights game....not to be wondering about it during the game!!

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jas0999 added 09:24 - Jan 31 "the loan market is open to us" - is this the same PJ who said he had learnt his mistakes and wasn't going to rely on loans. If we go down that route we will fail. We are failing already. PJ OUT!
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Ozzie_OwDoo added 09:33 - Jan 31 Clegg can't even convince players to join us that aren't getting paid.
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roytheboy added 09:36 - Jan 31 What about Andrews, are we trying to sign him ????
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osborne1nil added 09:49 - Jan 31 Would rather loan a decent player than sign a dud one. Totally unacceptable that we are in this situation right to the last day, which if I am correct and a player hasn't signed by midday they can't be involved tonight? Phil?
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nitroblue1970 added 10:20 - Jan 31 Looks like the search for Cbs and a RB will continue to the close season unless Jewell changes his surname to "daniels" and pulls a deal off last minute. Theres obviosly more going on here than we know, he definatly has a smallish budget for players, is ME planning ahead himself and looking at managerial alternatives? Of course he is , hes a businessman and will have a contingency plan, regardless of what he says in the programme about supporting the manager. If Jewell offered to resign I would expect it to be taken and Warnock or Dave Jones installed within a week.

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arc added 12:35 - Jan 31 Stop talking about another club's players, PJ.
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