General manager of football operations Lee O’Neill says Town would love left-back Luke Garbutt to return to the club on a permanent basis and that the 27-year-old’s situation will be monitored.

Garbutt spent a successful spell on loan with the Blues in 2019/20 before being released by parent club Everton after 11 years at Goodison at the end of the campaign.

O’Neill says the Blues are interested in the Harrogate-born full-back returning but admits money could be an issue with Garbutt reportedly being paid £27,500 a week by the Toffeemen. Further to that, TWTD understands Championship clubs watched him regularly during his spell with the Blues.

“There’s no secret in the fact that he was on Premier League money, so for us to achieve anywhere near what he would possibly like going forward is going to be quite hard for us,” O’Neill said.

“But he is a player that we brought in on loan, he did fantastic for us, we really like him and we would love to have him at the club.

“Whether we can get to some kind of agreement, only time will tell. I’m sure he is waiting for options as well, to see what comes his way off the back of a good season.

“I think it’s one we’ll definitely monitor and we’ll try and do the best we can to get the player secured, but I don’t know is the answer to that. A lot determines what happens over the next few weeks.”

Town have recently been linked with one or two other players, largely strikers, who would certainly cost money and O’Neill says the club’s ability to pay fees ahead of the new season will also depend on developments in the weeks to come, but admits it’s going to be difficult.

Like other clubs, the Blues have been badly hit by the financial impact of the Covid-19 pandemic and it seems likely that most of their business will be free transfers this summer with plenty of players expected to be available in that market at League One level as sides look to cut costs.

“I think a lot of those things will depend on what happens over the next few weeks,” O’Neill said when asked if Town might be in a position to pay fees this summer.

“I think some decisions for us [will depend on knowing] whether we’ve got the potential ability to get some revenue back from games and fans coming back to the stadiums, what happens with the season ticket compensation, whether the finance is there to be able to do it.

“It’s going to be difficult, there’s no doubt about it. It’s supply and demand, I think there’ll be a lot of players out of contract and there’ll be a lot of players who have had their contracts terminated. There’ll be more players out there than there were this time last year.”

Fans expressed concerns earlier in the week when it was reported that Swindon striker Eoin Doyle had opted to join League Two Bolton Wanderers having held talks with the Blues. However, O’Neill says Town never showed interest in the 32-year-old Irishman.

“We’ve never had any conversation regarding Eoin, that was a lot of speculation,” he said. “We get drawn into a lot of speculation with a lot of players, us and a number of other high profile clubs in League One.

“Eoin’s a good player and he did very well at Swindon this year and good luck to him with his move to Bolton but it was not a move that we were looking at from our point of view.

“We have a recruitment team and we are working on our particular targets. Just because we get linked with a particular player it doesn’t mean it’s always true.”

O’Neill says he anticipates the Blues being similar mentioned in connection with plenty of players over the course of the next few weeks.

“We always do, most of the time it’s not true but we do get linked with them because we’re actively looking at what options we have and where we can strengthen in certain areas of the pitch,” he said.

“It doesn’t necessarily mean we’re going to be in a bidding war with another team and they choose another team, a lower club over us. It might be the situation that we’ve never made an offer for that player so he’s never considered us, that’s why he chose the other club.”

Among the free transfers linked with the Blues has been former Northampton keeper David Cornell with Town likely to be in the market for another number one with loanee Will Norris having returned to Wolves.

“I’m not going to through individual players, it’s not fair. We get linked with everyone, we honestly do,” O’Neill continued when asked about links with Cornell which go back to December.

“Cornell had a great season at Northampton, he’s a player we’re aware of 100 per cent, we know about him.

“At the moment though we’re trying to look at our own options, we’ve got Tomas Holy, who is itching to get back in and play games for us, and we’ve got two young goalkeepers [Adam Przybek and Harry Wright] that we’re currently looking at and we’re assessing where they’re at.

“It would be unfair to say we’re commenting on this or looking at bringing in another goalkeeper at this moment in time when we’ve got three that we’re assessing.”

With new signings expected to come in and with the squad already one of the largest in the division, it’s inevitable that some players will need to be offloaded this summer. However, given the lack of money in the game at present, that might not be easy, particularly if Town try to move on some of their higher earners.

“I never like the word offloading because it’s not as easy as just doing that,” O’Neill said. “Every player that comes through this door wants to play football in that starting XI on the Saturday, and they don’t want to sit in the stand and they don’t want to be part of the squad and just make up the numbers.

“I think it’s both parts, there’ll be a situation where the club maybe feels they’re more a valued asset to the squad and they maybe feel they want to start, and that’s where you get the issue sometimes.

“For those players who are not starting every week, it might be that some of them have to move on for their own personal reasons because they want to play football.

“We have to look at everything. We’ve got a big squad, we need to try and make sure we can look at options to bring players in but we can’t do that necessarily with a big squad. We’ll review that situation and work with players.”

Photo: TWTD

midastouch added 17:45 - Jul 10 @Linkboy13 A game of loans = a game of moans. For the mega positive crew when are we permitted to have a little moan? Is 11th place in League One enough to keep you happy clapping forever more blues1? Do we need to finish in the bottom of League One to be permitted a moan or do we need to wait for League Two? Or are we only allowed to moan if Mr. O'Neill says we may? How bad does it need to get before we are allowed to voice some discontent? You asked for some reasoned argument blues1 so please allow me to do so. Would you say things have improved under O'Neill's watch in terms of results and league position? Was it wise to give Lambert such a long contract? I'm sure O'Neill would have been consulted and had some input on the matter.

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midastouch added 17:51 - Jul 10 And last but not least, if O'Neill is so great why has he continually backed Lambert even though I can't remember the last time we beat a team in the top 8 of League One? When was the last time we beat a decent team?
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BeattiesBackPocket added 18:32 - Jul 10 @Blues1 both Clegg and Milne had excellent qualifications unfortunately both were restricted to being puppets. I think under any other regime he'd excel but some of us are cheesed off with the same old spin every pre season or when struggling. It's plain and obvious he will not be coming here we wouldn't pay even half his wage in the championship let alone league one so just be honest and so no chance we can't afford him it's quite simple 🤷‍♂️

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blues1 added 18:40 - Jul 10 Midastiuch. There we go, the standard, happy clapperxremarkk as soon as someone questions you. No, I'm far from it. And yes, byvall means moan on a story on here that merits it. But you simply moan whatever the story. Oneill has no choice but to back Lambert tho does he? Hes the director of football, not the owner. And only the owner would have a say on Lamberts contract. So unless Evan's was to decide enough is enough with Lambert then he will get Oneills backing. After all, he has to work with him, as well as those above him. Since when have results and lge position been Oneills fault. That's down to the manager. Oneill simply is the man who works in between the manager and the owner. He consults with Lambert as to who he wants to sign, and anything else he matmy want, and reports to Evan's. That's in between the other jobs he has at the club, including as academy manager. He does a hell of a lot of work at the club, overseeing most sides of the club. Maybe it would be an idea to have some1 who can concentrate on the football director part of his job full time. But to constantly criticise him, every time he makes a statement I believe is unnecessary. Hes only answering the questions hes asked. Just think its time to just put this season behind us, forget the negativity, and get behind the club, in the hope we get it right next season. I'm sure we'll all be moaning if things go tits up again. Even me.

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Carberry added 18:53 - Jul 10 blues1, you don't hold back giving your fellow fans a blast do you? And you are easily pleased with O'Neill's CV. His experience of football administration is non-existent, yes sports science and working with kids are there but where's the required knowledge of running a football club, buying players, negotiating contracts and all the other difficult management he's seems to give his opinion about? He was in the building, has a degree, albeit somewhat irrelevant to the job he's doing and of course was probably cheap when someone new was needed. That's why he's doing the job. Oh and I forgot, we can forgive everything because he's an Ipswich man through and through. He might have a tough job, be out of his depth, be a mouthpiece for the owner but my point was why the BS all the time. Most of us have had enough of it.

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midastouch added 19:09 - Jul 10 @ blues1, you asked for a reasoned argument.  As such, I would argue the league table and associated results hold far more significance than any profile on LinkedIn!  Lambert, Evans and O'Neill are all responsible to some degree of measure for our current predicament.  Yes Lambert and Evans carry most of the responsibility.  However, O'Neill also needs to carry some of the burden of responsibility too.   As for your last paragraph.  Fair enough.  I understand you want to get behind the team again for the new season.  To be fair I cut the club a lot of slack following their relegation and felt much the same.  But their performance last season was awful after a promising start.  Once the going got tough last season, we sunk down the league like a Suffolk version of the Titanic and it just wasn't good enough. There was just too much talk and not enough positive action last season.  Every time players like Chambers (or whoever) came out on the Sunday and Monday and said things will get better, they never did.  When you keep hearing the same old things but not noticing any improvement it becomes that much harder to keep the faith. Look I admire your positivity and levels of forgiveness.  I know football is a fickle business and if we get promoted I'll be happy to say O'Neill eventually took care of business.  But he still needs to make a convert out of me yet.

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SpiritOfJohn added 19:19 - Jul 10 Garbutt was one of a handful of decent performers last season, but we shouldn't waste too much time or effort trying to sign him. Sadly, we should be concentrating on more realistic targets.
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blues1 added 19:38 - Jul 10 Midastouch. I totally agree with you regards to players coming out and making statements that they dont then back up on the pitch. Even tho again, they're only answering questions put to them. But yes, they need to put that into practice. For me, the only person responsible for the way things went downhill, from as u say, a good start to the season, is Lambert, with his constant rotation and getting games called off for international breaks. Obviously, injuries didnt help neither, but that constant changing of 5 or 6 players almost every game killed us. And hey, it's not a case of me bring optimistic. I simply think that next season is a must to get promoted. Bcse if we dont, the salary cap will kill us.

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blues1 added 19:41 - Jul 10 Oh, and should have added, I think they need us fans to get fully behind them. Just have to hope too thatcat least some fans can attend from the start
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midastouch added 19:50 - Jul 10 Fair enough blues1. You make some valid points. If we don't go up this season I do fear for us as we could become cut adrift. I know our best chance of going up is getting behind the team but the fans turned out home and away last season in large numbers and still the team came up short. And yes, let's hope Lambert settles on a more regular side as he was like "The Tinkerman" (remember Claudio Ranieri at Chelsea) last season. Ultimately Ranieri learned the lesson as when he was at Leicester he kept a very settled team and we all know how that worked out! Lambert could learn a big lesson from that! :-)

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Chicago_Blue added 11:08 - Jul 13 Don't just "monitor". How about actually "do it".
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WeWereZombies added 21:52 - Jul 14 It says something about the state of English football that Carlo Ancelotti can be unaware of a footballer on his payroll who is probably being paid over a million pounds a year...
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