Town CEO Mark Ashton says there can be “a time delay” in completing transfers in this period of the close season.

So far the Blues have added four players to their squad, free transfers Freddie Ladapo, Dominic Ball and Greg Leigh, as well as Tyreece John-Jules, who joined on a season-long loan from Arsenal.

In addition, new contracts have been signed by Luke Woolfenden, Wes Burns, Kayden Jackson and Elkan Baggott, which Ashton, speaking in an interview with BBC Radio Suffolk’s Life’s a Pitch (3hrs 24mins 59secs), says was important.

“The first thing you have to do is your housekeeping,” he said. “You’ve got to get your own house in order, and I think we’ve done that with the new contracts we’ve offered to some of our existing players. It was important that we got those players locked down early.

“We’ve brought some in and I expect there to be some more coming in before the end of the window.

“I think the frustrating thing at the moment is that we’re in this period now where free transfers have gone, Premier League clubs are now back in training, Premier League managers are settling their squads down and whilst you have discussions with clubs about transfers of other players, Premier League clubs have got pre-season tours to fulfil and sometimes they want numbers around for training and technical camps so there’s a bit of almost a time delay in being able to conclude some of these deals.

“But I promise you we are still active in the market and I fully expect some more to come in.”

TWTD reported earlier in the week that the Blues had made a £1 million offer to Leeds for left-back Leif Davis, who will be part of their squad which travels to Australia tomorrow, while Town are understood to have had a bid turned down by Leicester City for striker George Hirst, who is also interesting Championship clubs.

On Thursday, former Town midfielder Flynn Downes completed a move from Swansea to West Ham, providing the Blues with a welcome summer windfall.

The Blues are due 20 per cent of the profit the Swans made on what they paid Town for the 23-year-old last summer. That fee is believed to have been £1.4 million, although further clauses may have been triggered, while the Hammers are understood to have paid an initial £9 million with that deal reportedly potentially worth up to £14 million.

Quizzed on how much Town are set to receive as their share of Downes’s move to his local club, Ashton kept his cards close to his chest.

“I can’t tell you how much because I’ll be in a world of trouble because it’s a contractual obligation,” he said.

“One of the things that we are quite effective at is how we trade players. [chief operating officer] Luke Werhun plays a big part in this.

“We took a good fee at the time for Flynn. I’m not going to divulge it, I wish he’d stayed [but he needed to move].

“We took the money on the guaranteed [fee], we took money on additional games and then we protected ourselves with a chunky sell-on.

“We’ve now had confirmation of what that deal looks like so we know how much we’re getting on that.

“And if you were to put all that together as a valuation of a player who has moved from a League One club, if you look at the value of players that have been sold by League One clubs, it’s a very different value to what a Championship player moves for.

“So, if you put what we got initially for the player and what we got from the sell-on, it’s a very healthy transfer fee for a League One player.”

Also among the guests on today's show was former Blues keeper-coach Malcolm Webster (3hr 10mins 48secs).

Photo: Photo: James Ager

Bazza8564 added 12:28 - Jul 10 Enjoying this dialogue, its healthy we have differing views. Personally Stockton doesnt interest me, this summer we are hunting players with a pedigree and potential above League One and I would expect any more signings to come from PL like Hirst. Or we wait and see how Jackson Ledapo and JJ get on, we have Simpson and Pigott too so its not as if we are short on options and we need to give JJ and Ledapo a proper go. On Celina, I actually think we have a chance of a permanent deal, albeit on 6-8k if we can offload some wages elsewhere. The key to that deal lays in France, with 2 years left on his contract dont be surprised if Dijon buy those years out at a premium and let him move on. A tiered deal on lower wages here now with more to come if we go up, but no upfront fee would appeal to all. Dijon will be desperate to manage him off their books financially.....

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Stato added 12:48 - Jul 10 @bazza am I mistaken or didn't you say previously that the noises coming out of ITFC were that the board had signed off a budget that assumed we were already in the championship? Perhaps you could clarify as so far at least our budget seems no different to where it was 12 months ago.
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blues1 added 17:49 - Jul 10 Bossman. Our wage budget is the same as in its 60% of income, which is thr max we can spend. How much that 60% actually is obviously dependent on what we've brought in. The downes money will no doubt give us a bit more wriggle room. May allow us to get one or 2 more deals over the line. Apparently we spoke to mk about twine, as our budget would have been enough to be able to sign him, but he didn't want to play in lge1 so we didn't pursue it. But just the fact we could have shows we at least have the wage budget there. And none of us know just how much the owners are willing to use for transfer fees this season. Sure there is a set budget, which will increase when we get promoted.

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Stato added 18:03 - Jul 10 @blues1 yep but the budget can be manipulated by a capital injection from the owners if they so wish. I'm not saying they should but it's in their gift if that's what they decide.
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blues1 added 19:27 - Jul 10 Bosses. Yes, ur right,there are ways around it. But don't think they'd be doing that at the moment. More likely to keep more money back for when we get to the championship. As we have some leeway in our wage budget at the mo, expect they'd hold off on that. Especially if some1 was to leave to make way for a new signings wages. And as I said, the downes money probably enough for what we need to deal with the wages side of things.

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pg888 added 22:30 - Jul 10 Pigott was a one season wonder and was well useless to put it nicely. Anyone suggesting stockton really needs to get over him we need better to get out of this league
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Razor added 09:59 - Jul 11 Well there is no doubt at all that we need an experieced goalscorer up front and how my old mate Bacon can even suggest we have enough up front is ridiculous-----do we have any sort of foreign scouting network now? There are some good Dutch and Belgian strikers knocking about and ofcourse would be a gamble but would not break the bank.
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cressi added 11:13 - Jul 11 BobbyBell Business will be done this summer I don't claim to know who but before window shuts. January is not good time for signings as everybody knows. Except maybe for that extra push or injury.
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roystevensonsrocket added 11:30 - Jul 11 Stocktons running style is the same as George best sand maybe that's not the only similarity having had 11 clubs in 12 seasons etc
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roystevensonsrocket added 11:31 - Jul 11 George Best and ( correction)
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