Town owner Marcus Evans says the Blues could return to spending significant fees again this summer, having largely relied on free transfers, loans and players available for bargain sums in recent seasons after paying out big money for players in his early years at the club.

Speaking in a wide-ranging interview in today’s match programme, which also appears on the club site, Evans says that if manager Mick McCarthy wants to sign a player who would cost a significant fee then it would be discussed and revealed that a large offer was rebuffed in January.

“If Mick identifies a player that will cost us, say, a million, then we will look at it and discuss it,” Evans writes.

“I will look at transfer fees and we made a substantial bid for a player in January that was turned down but I will always weigh up how best the money we have available can be spent.

“I work closely with Mick on that, obviously. I spend the money and he has the fun! But seriously I feel we work well together.

“I provide hopefully a stable environment into which new players want to come and existing players want to stay.

“He works to get the best out of whatever squad we have available and we both look at how I can support a year-on-year improvement in the squad.

“Mick’s shown an excellent recruitment in his time here and we invested in the squad last summer which I felt was a step up from the previous year when we got to the play-offs.”

He feels that injuries seriously hampered the Blues this season with too many of the more creative players unavailable too often.

“Ultimately injuries have held us back this year from reaching our full potential,” he adds. “I think the injuries to our creative players have had a big impact.

“I’ve heard the criticism of our style of play at home games over the last month or two but I think any team would be affected by the loss of their most creative players, their most influential players and we have clearly missed David McGoldrick, Teddy Bishop, Ryan Fraser and Daryl Murphy.”

Evans also writes about what he has learnt during his eight and a half years at the club, manager Mick McCarthy and the academy, and also brands the current situation with Financial Fair Play “a total farce”. The full interview appears in today’s programme and is on the club site.

Photo: Action Images

superblue70 added 11:32 - Apr 30 Well just read the interview and what a load of bull, why do these interviews come out now as haven't heard a word from our so called 'leader' in months, nothing will Change and people who think it will are fools (so hope to be proved wrong on this), afraid it's all spin,spin,spin. Would love to be at PR today as missing the place, but must do a mm and stubbingly stick to my guns. Still will be £50 better off.

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blueherts added 11:43 - Apr 30 Why should we believe a man who no one has seen and who has never come out and stated what the plan direction of our club is This is aimed at those supporters who have not yet renewed or decided not to . Mick makes a dig at mk dons saying playing football down not guarantee success and be careful what you wish for How about setting up a team to win a match not playing 'not to lose' How about insisting on two DMS every game when we quite clearly cannot even counter attack Mick 5 wins in 22 since Xmas is not good enough and I do not buy any of this Get out and show yourself ME and tells us what and how you plan to take us forward You only have to look at the ME group of companies to see how 'transparent' he really is He sells corporate sports 'entertainment'packages -IRONY is not lost on me

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prebsa added 12:01 - Apr 30 @essex57 marking people down again without making any sensible contribution of your own. Pathetic!
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blueherts added 12:13 - Apr 30 Yes like we COULD start playing the ball on the deck out from the back Yes we COULD play players in their correct positions Yes we COULD start playing to win football matches and Not set up 'not to lose' But we won't under the current regime
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Lightningboy added 12:16 - Apr 30 The problem/solution isn't about how many millions we do or don't spend - it's the fact that we have a man in charge who's content with playing a centre back out of position at right back throughout the entire season and can't see how much simple decisions like that unbalance the team. Not rocket science.
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MrDiddle added 12:24 - Apr 30 I've marked you down prebsa because all you ever do is soil my laptop screen with your sad moaning. Get a life its only a game!
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BlueArmy01 added 12:33 - Apr 30 2 stories in one day nucleus of a good squad with youth coming through and Evans may invest big, all I can think is Season Ticket sales must be much worse than they are saying.
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maninashed added 12:44 - Apr 30 Yes the football is utter tosh. McCarthy has said he is not going to change the way we play. He will generally not use the kids as the game is always too important. He is never going to put out a cup side that will win anything. But, according the the Oxford dictionary a supporter is simply - person that supports.
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prebsa added 12:49 - Apr 30 @MrDiddle take a long hard look at yourself you don't ever comment on here with anything that can be constructive to a debate. Good or bad. You are as pathetic as essex57. You are the one that needs to get a life you pathetic tool.
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cats_whiskers added 12:58 - Apr 30 That evil essex57 has been going berserk on here again with clicking his mouse on the down pointer (must be RED HOT) He could actually get his Fingers Burned Has that blinkered imbecile got this only reason to live? One does wonder
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Elto added 13:02 - Apr 30 prebsa How is your comment 'constructive'? It's really not that difficult to ignore down votes.
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HARRY10 added 13:07 - Apr 30 " the money we have available can be spent." available the devil is in the detail, as usual
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Daleyitfc added 13:08 - Apr 30 One of the more amusing aspects of the current club ownership is the ongoing belief in many here that there is a single individual who is called Marcus Evans, who runs the company of the same name, and who personally decides the funding of the club/team. Marcus Evans is just the name of the faceless company that owns the club : its publicity machine has produced the programme notes, and every now and then a member of its board is seconded to the ITFC board to be the 'face' of Marcus Evans, the company. 'He' (Evans) does not exist, and never has : the young blonde bloke 'mistakenly' caught on camera playing in a golf tournament on Sky was just a 'plant' to carry on the pretence of a reclusive man who, occasionally, gets photographed against his wishes. Drivel. 'He' is a myth.

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Edmundo added 13:16 - Apr 30 I agree with most posters on here: the season ticket sales are WAY down and ME has had to say something, anything to get supporters going. What'I'd say is wait for the man to put his money on the table, then MM to spend that money, before getting excited. Youth is still key though to getting us up and established. Without it we're a yo-yo team at best. I am still of the opinion though that unfortunately the culture that has given us so much glory in the past is gone for good with the current set-up.

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bohslegend added 13:41 - Apr 30 Jeez prebsa, I just laugh at you these days. Back to the topic. It would be refreshing to see ME put some money in to the kitty alright. Sounds like he feels very frustrated having taken the rule abiding stance with the FFP directive and has now had enough of it. Hopefully he'll give MM the cash to bring in a couple of players. That along with the younger boys coming through, and hopefully far less injuries next season could see us doing a bit better.

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BrettenhamBlue added 14:26 - Apr 30 Bohslegend Hopefully that's the case. The FFP Directives are a huge joke Edmundo It's not a criticism but where is the evidence of our ticket sales? I just haven't seen any figures yet Blueherts Hoof hoof hoof Buntitfc To answer for guentchev, saw Civelli in Argentina squad in friendly couple years ago, didn't play but my nephew was well chuffed when I said to him "that guy there kicking it with Tevez used to play for Ipswich". Prior to match. And no it wasn't renato. Luc Never got capped. Daleyitfc Conspiracy theories? Who actually runs ITfC then? Marinashed Football is hoof hoof hoof. That 7 dwarves song? Just sing that and replace work with hoof and have 11 not 7. cOYHB!

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prebsa added 14:46 - Apr 30 Bohslegend easy to laugh at you too the cr@p you come out with
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ITFCsince67 added 15:17 - Apr 30 Key would in sentence..."could". Just like I could buy a season ticket again it I won't.
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Trequartista added 18:07 - Apr 30 I think the headline to this article is misleading. It says he would be prepared to pay big fees but the quote says he would pay only a million for a player. That's not a big fee. It's about a third of what we paid for Marcus Stewart at that was 1999/00 prices.
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grumpyblue1966 added 08:21 - May 1 Total blue you hope Marcus gives Mick money to spend on player's next season. I'll tell you now he will not give Mick no money when was the last time we spent massive on a player/s the only thing Mick will get are freebies that no other club want or loans.are club is in £80+ million in debt so yes he is doing a great job so much so he is ripping fans off by making season tickets the most expensive in the championship. What's are average gate 16.000 + I remember when not so long ago we where getting gates 28.000+ so no he has made our club no better but worse the sooner he f☆☆ks off the better. And Mick can go as well his hoof football and tatics are awful unless things change in a big way we are doomed under this bunch of clowns  eÂ

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Gcon added 12:03 - May 1 I thought MM sounded pretty skeptical about ME's comments in his post match interview. He said something along the lines of "Yes, I read that - It's one thing to say you will discuss £1m transfer fees with me and another to actually commit the money".
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dirtydingusmagee added 10:10 - May 2 whilst this would be good [if it happened] its a bit of an ''after the Suffolk Punch has bolted'' statement. Having had the best start for many seasons investment would have been wiser earlier this season .A good opportunity has been missed , like strikers missing opportunities to score , result could be costly and mean difference between winning ,losing ,success or failure .

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dirtydingusmagee added 10:10 - May 2 whilst this would be good [if it happened] its a bit of an ''after the Suffolk Punch has bolted'' statement. Having had the best start for many seasons investment would have been wiser earlier this season .A good opportunity has been missed , like strikers missing opportunities to score , result could be costly and mean difference between winning ,losing ,success or failure .

0

HackneyBlue added 20:34 - May 2 Its too late my renewal has been in the bin a month,hoofball was evident from day 1 not the last 2 months,spend millions but if they are all hoofers count me out
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