Town boss Paul Jewell has revealed that he held talks with one of his two Portsmouth targets on Sunday. TWTD understands that the player was versatile defender or midfielder Joel Ward, who was previously one of the three Pompey players the Blues tried to sign in January.

The Town manager says the weekend discussions went well but that the clubs are yet to do a deal — which would be an initial loan formalised into a permanent switch in the summer - with other sides also in the hunt as Thursday’s 5pm loan deadline nears: “I met one of them on Sunday and had a chat. We got permission from Portsmouth and that’s where it is.

“Whether that’s going to happen, I honestly don’t know. You can ask me who it is, but I’m not going to tell you.

“We chatted for a couple of hours and the rest of it is obviously up to the football clubs - the chief executive here and the administrator at Portsmouth.

“If it happens, great, if not, we move on. I think he was keen to come here, but I don’t think the player is short of offers either.”

Ward, who stands 6ft 2in tall, was in Portsmouth’s midfield last night as they beat Birmingham 4-1 at Fratton Park.

The 22-year-old, for whom the Blues agreed a fee with Portsmouth on the final day of the transfer window before the move broke down over personal terms, was believed to have spoken with Town a fortnight ago, crisis-mired Pompey having contacted clubs to inform them which players are available as they look to raise cash.

In January, a fee was also agreed for Portsmouth keeper Stephen Henderson, who has subsequently joined West Ham, while the Blues and others had offers for central defender Jason Pearce rebuffed.

Pearce, 24 remains a target of Town — and reportedly the Hammers and Southampton — but we understand no move is likely before Thursday’s deadline.

Jewell says any players who come in before the deadline will be signings for the long term: “If we bring somebody in it will be a loan with a view to being here next year and beyond.

“We’re more interested in building for the future rather than short-term stuff at the moment. I don’t want to get carried away or blasé about it, but at one stage it was looking as if we were in a relegation fight and if we were still down there three or four points off the bottom three, we might have to make some short-term decisions.

“We don’t want to relax, but hopefully we’ve got enough points and we don’t want to spend money when it’s not really vital to us going up or going down.”

However, he says that aside from players at clubs in perilous states like Pompey, long-term signings tend not to become available at this point in the season with most teams having something to play for between now and May: “There aren’t too many teams who are sat mid-table and cruising, are there?

“We want to try and make sure our network is in place when the season ends. I want to get to the situation where we’re tweaking the squad every year rather than overhauling it.

“There seems to have been a constant procession of players coming in and going out since I’ve been here and we want to just calm that down a little bit, bring in quality and tweak here and there. But to get to that stage we’ve got a lot of progress to make.”

Jewell, speaking at yesterday's press conference, said he and his staff are spending much of their time watching potential targets, the manager himself having taken in the League One game between Chesterfield and Huddersfield last night: “We’re aware that we need to improve in a lot of areas and if you look at our scouting list and where we’re all going [on Tuesday night], you’ll realise we’re looking to improve the squad for next season and beyond.

“We’re out most nights looking at games and that’s why I’ve got to get away from here soon as I’ve got a long journey ahead of me.”

With loan keeper Alex McCarthy set to return to Reading on April 11th, the Town manager had considered looking for another glovesman as cover but is happy to stick with his existing options for the remaining weeks of the campaign: “We’ve got Richard Wright and Arran Lee-Barrett here.

“It’s something that we’ve looked at, but hopefully things are going to be OK in terms of not looking over our shoulders. I don’t want to take our foot off the gas but everything we do now will be towards next season.”

US U20 keeper Cody Cropper, 19, was back in full training last week after undergoing knee surgery before Christmas and will be Town’s third choice number one until the summer.

Photo: Action Images

Photo: Action Images

Mark added 05:49 - Mar 21 This sounds promising as it would be good to add Ward to the squad. It's a shame we still haven't found a permanent goalkeeper though, although I agree Lee-Barrett, Wright and Cropper can see us to the end of the season. Perhaps Cody is worth a run out at some point?
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gypo added 06:55 - Mar 21 I think I'll just wait until Thursday when loan deadline is over before I get excited on this one, But hope we get both of them though. COYB
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itfc1981 added 07:28 - Mar 21 Its Pearce we need!
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Langdon_Blue added 07:41 - Mar 21 If we win tonight, we'll only be 8 points off the play off's with 9 games to play. I wonder if he is playing that down, as he must be aware we are closing in...
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Tillz9 added 07:45 - Mar 21 Langdon - we are bound to lose because of that. You know we like to drift towards end of season with nothin to play for :-) A win tonight would certainly make things interesting, especially with a couple of winnable home games coming up after tonight
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geography26 added 08:00 - Mar 21 I'm confused! How do we know it's ward and not Pearce when jewell refused to comment? Also why has he not approached brad Guzan about a loan with a free transfer in the summer?
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pitseablue added 08:24 - Mar 21 Langdon....Given our current form PJ must know all things are possable ! I think on current form, over the last 8 games, we are the third best in the league. Play off place !
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Langdon_Blue added 08:34 - Mar 21 IF, the form continued and we took 6th spot, no one would fancy playing us...especially not those 'appy 'ammers! Big Sam doesn't enjoy Play offs at PR much either Hahaha :-)
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CornardBlue added 08:50 - Mar 21 The question is do we stick or twist, i think we should twist we have 10 games to play and they are all games we could win, but to do this we need at least one new defender and a keeper. ALB and Wrighy are just not good enough plus even if we do not make play offs a good finish might sell more season tickets for next season.
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hollywoodginge added 08:53 - Mar 21 I may be totally wrong here but I just get the impression that it could be Pearce we spoke to, with the Indication that the player in question has "other offers" aplenty and it's been well documented that Pearce has been linked elsewhere openly, more so than ward, this is what I base my hunch on.
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JustSpivvyChops added 08:53 - Mar 21 Wonder how much it's going to cost us to get Jordan rhodes back then.....well, that is who he went to watch at the beginning of the week, wasn't it? One good thing, we would get a half decent percentage back of whatever we buy him for, as our original sell on clauses are obviously still in play. Thanks for your efforts Keano, you set the club back 3 years.
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Karlosfandangal added 09:00 - Mar 21 Would love the play off but we would need another major overhaul if we were to go up as we are far from ready, would like another season to build the team as players like Hyam, Cressswell and Carson are not ready for prem football yet. However the money would make a huge differance to the club
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buryblue77 added 09:15 - Mar 21 Whilst I'm more than happy with the progress we've made on the pitch and if we can keep this form up into next season we'll be in with a shout next year, I'm increasingly frustrated with our inability to land/length of time it takes to conclude deals. We were in for three players from Portsmouth, who have managed to send some of their players out to other clubs (Henderson to West Ham being one of our targets) and we're still in 'talks'. This club is on the verge of collapse and it should be easy to do a deal with them based on their inability to finance business operations. About sales people, some say that there are those who can sell ice to eskimos, unfortunately if we ITFC were salespersons we wouldn't be able to sell sight to the blind!

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newboy added 09:32 - Mar 21 Really still blaming keane pathetic he was goverened by management who insisted players were sold with rhodes he was told either sell him or wickham had he sold wickham at that time he would have been crucified the poor bloke was in a lose lose situation as he said had met our CEO first he would never have taken the job as we cannot land players it appears many others have the same view

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planetblue_2011 added 09:48 - Mar 21 Ward would be a good player, so would Pearce or another good cb. A good goal keeper signed up for next season & maybe a younger striker if Scotland doesn't stay but I hope he does stay for his experience. Sign murphy permanently too & that should see us through for next season. COYB
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gypo added 09:48 - Mar 21 Personally I think west ham only got henderson to make sure pompey never went out of business. Big Sam has openly said that if they don't get promotion they would have to get rid of nearly all their team because of the wages they're still paying.
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HALLSJ added 10:10 - Mar 21 Regarding play-offs, from the 10 remaining games I would consider 8 wins are needed with no more than 1 defeat that would give us 73 points. I feel that Burnley, M'boro and Barnsley all at home are very winnable, Watford away???? Always a bogey team and they are playing well. Hope Jay Rodriguez is not fit for tonight, definately Burnleys real danger.
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Tractorog added 10:11 - Mar 21 Talk of the playoffs is a bit far fetched... if we win tonight we'd still need to pick up 8 points more than everyone above us in the remaining games. We might get close, but let's not kid ourselves. We will do well to finish in the top half considering all that has gone on this season.
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Toepunt added 10:47 - Mar 21 gypo, I think there's more reasoning behind West Ham's decision to buy Henderson. Not only does it give a cash injection to Portsmouth therby helping them to complete the rest of their games (and therfore safeguarding West Ham's 6 points), but if West Ham fail to win promotion thay have a decent championship keeper probably on a lot less money than Green (who, as you point out) would probably have to go. If they do win promotion, Henderson fould make a perfectly good back up keeper. They can't really lose.

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tractorboy2434 added 13:09 - Mar 21 God, am I sick of this Portsmouth stuff, either sign both of them or give it a rest
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