TWTD understands Town are closing in on the loan signing of Birmingham City midfielder Stephen Gleeson.

Speaking earlier today, Blues boss Mick McCarthy said he was hopeful of adding someone to his squad before Saturday’s game at Bolton and Gleeson is that player with the move set to be confirmed on Friday.

The 29-year-old is well-known to McCarthy having been at Wolves during his time as boss at Molineux.

Dubliner Gleeson played youth football with Cherry Orchard before joining Wolves in 2006.

Loan spells at Stockport (three times), Hereford and the MK Dons followed before he joined the Buckinghamshire side on a permanent basis in July 2009 having made only one League Cup start and three league sub appearances for Wolves.

After five years with MK, the 5ft 9in tall midfielder moved on to Birmingham in 2014.

This season Gleeson, who is out of contract at the end of the season, has made only seven appearances (five in the Championship) with his most recent first-team game in early December.

He has won four Republic of Ireland full caps, scoring once, in addition to appearances at U17, U18, U19 and U21 levels.

Meanwhile, reports claim Werder Bremen, Espanyol and Torino are keen to sign Town loanee Bersant Celina during the January window.

However, the Manchester City man leaving the Blues is unlikely with the season-long loan deal understood to be along the same lines as Tom Lawrence's last season which required the agreement of all three parties - the player and the two clubs - for it to be cut short.

Photo: Action Images

blueshamrock added 23:43 - Jan 18 Nobody wants to play for you Mccarthy your a joke move on and let this club go forward you dinosaur
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dangerous30 added 07:05 - Jan 19 I think we already have a couple of loan players who cannot get in there currant teams and are doing ok. So let's give him a chance to play first.
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Steve_ITFC_Sweden added 07:33 - Jan 19 Stop-gap, bargain basement, shop-damaged (sorry, no disrespect) goods, but this is the area in which we operate. But if Gleeson can stay fit, then I can see that he might be a useful fairly short-term addition, and I wish him well. However, it seems that nearly all our signings are not necessarily bad players but often have long-term injury issues. From this standpoint, I wonder just how cost-effective our policy is.

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PortmanTerrorist added 09:35 - Jan 19 The real story here is Celina. He leaves and it is season over.
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midastouch added 10:22 - Jan 19 Be gutted if we can't hang on to Celina for at least the end of the season, he's the 1 player I don't mind parting with my money to watch as you know he might just produce a moment of magic like he did on Saturday. Yes he can go missing a bit at times (which I understand some fans find frustrating) but the upside more than outweighs the downside.
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Skip73 added 10:25 - Jan 19 I see the usual snowflakes are at it again on here. Get a grip people. Spence turned out ok after being slated on here. Give him a chance.
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midastouch added 10:27 - Jan 19 And I want him to start against Norwich. McCarthy dropped a massive clanger there in the home fixture bringing him on far too late into the match! Every time we play them we seem commit suicide with the line ups before a ball has been kicked. And losing Lawrence to suspension last season as well was a massive loss, I would of never played him that prior game and made him walk the tightrope. I would rather we kept him in reserve for the Norwich game. The reason we haven't beaten them for so long can party be blamed on the fact we've not even put out our best teams. Even with our best team it wouldn't be an easy task but at least it would give us a much better chance of getting a long overdue change of fortune against our nauseating neighbours.

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