Town will go into Saturday’s home game against Brentford having been unable to add another centre-half to their squad.

Blues boss Mick McCarthy says plenty of players have come into their thoughts but so far with no success.

TWTD understands Brighton’s 24-year-old defender Connor Goldson is among those to have come into consideration.

“We’ve not exhausted all avenues yet but we’ve pretty much driven up them all, there are a few left to go,” reflected McCarthy, who also confirmed that Josh Emmanuel can't be brought back from his loan at Rotherham until January.

“There are quite a few that are all dependent on something else. That doesn’t make my job any easier or anybody else’s but in the meantime we’ll keep cracking on with what we’ve got.”

He confirmed that it’s now too late to bring someone in for tomorrow: “He would have had to have been signed by 12 o’clock. He might not be signed by 12 on Monday, to be honest.”

Does the fact that other clubs know he is desperate to add a central defender mean the price of potential targets goes up? “It’s just part of the gig, it just makes it a little bit more difficult. But we’ll keep trying.

“You wouldn’t believe the number of calls and names and videos and people I’ve looked at and we’ll continue to do so until we get somebody.”

With skipper Luke Chambers out for a month and Adam Webster (ankle) and Tommy Smith (hamstring) for around another seven weeks, McCarthy says whoever comes in will get a chance to play regular football.

“It’s an opportunity for somebody,” he said. “There’ll be somebody that wants it, there’ll be somebody who’ll let me have a player to come take this opportunity.

“As I mentioned earlier, there are a lot of youngsters that I think Premier League clubs would like to let out, but you go through the league and see how many teams have got an 18-year-old playing at centre-half. I don’t know if there’s one. A 19-year-old, I’m not sure that there is.

“I had a look and pretty much they’re big, tough hairy-arsed experienced professional footballers. And that’s pretty much what you need.

“We’ve lost one ourselves, Chambo. He played 46 games last year, he’s 32, hugely experienced and that’s hard to replace with a young ‘un.”

With hindsight, does the Blues boss regret not offering Steven Taylor, who was with Town in pre-season training, his short-term deal having ended in May, a contract?

“No, not at all,” he insisted. “Since when have we stockpiled players? ‘Just in case that three of the centre-halves get injured we’ll just just keep you around’. Would he want to do that? He’s gone to Peterborough, he’s playing. That was never going to be an option.

“And, by the way, you get one injured, we can cover that. We get two, I’ve covered that with Jonas Knudsen or with Jordan Spence doing it.

“I get three injured, I don’t know how you manage to cover for that. If that’s me being a bad manager you better put that.”

Photo: TWTD

Butcherboy added 10:55 - Aug 19 Any other position on the pitch he'd play a youngster but not at CB. How does he know what they can do until he gives them a go? The 23s captain Chris Smith deserves a chance.
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Razor added 12:01 - Aug 19 I pray and hope MM does not panic and revert to type, especially if we suffer defeat----attack is the best form of defence and we now have the players to it for once.
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leftie1972 added 19:47 - Aug 19 Just for the record Steven Taylor played the full 90 again for Posh today. Josh wasn't really effective today but big Kief looked a handful. he had some nice touches and took his headed goal well.
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