Town captain Matt Holland appears to be the most likely Blues' player to be on his way before the Premier League's transfer deadline under the ‘clubs in distress' rule is up on Friday evening. Holland has been watched for some while by Charlton boss Alan Curbishley, however, according to Joe Royle, no bid has yet come in.

Curbishley has been at a number of recent Town games and it there is even a suggestion that Holland and Charlton have already spoken regarding a move.

Given the current state of the market and the club's finances, the Blues might receive as little as £2 million for their captain who is understood to be earning £15,000-a-week while at Portman Road.

Joe Royle admits that there is interest in his players but is yet to receive a firm offer: “We've had no bids. We've had enquiries. As it stands at the moment we've got no imminent deals. There is interest in players and obviously there's still until tomorrow night if anybody wants to sign anybody to play this season.

“The Premier League deadline for ‘clubs in distress' ends tomorrow night. People can still sign players for next season but they can't play them. But there's not a lot of money around at the moment.

“The clubs are all very cautious. There's no real reason for the Premiership to be worried about cash but the game generally has talked itself into a recession and the transfer market is suffering.

"Whereas clubs used to try and bring somebody in fresh to try and save themselves from relegation, the attitude now is that we may as well go down with what we've got and have one last go at it.

“I think the other clubs are looking at Europe and saying ‘if we go for Europe this year and spend our money, we'll get better deals in the summer'”

“There's possibilities of deals tomorrow but at this stage no certainties. We'll just wait and see. Things are very tight and we could probably do with doing a deal sooner rather than later but we'll know tomorrow night.”

Last summer the Blues agreed a fee for Holland with Aston Villa of above £4 million. Then Holland turned down the switch with the Midlanders offering well below his earnings at Portman Road and confidence high that Town would power their way back into the Premiership.

The season has not gone to plan and despite sitting in seventh just out of the play-off places the Blues are still considered outsiders for promotion. Holland's contract with the Blues has a year less to run than when Villa's offer came in during the summer and, although money wasn't the only reason he stayed at Portman Road, an attractive offer from Charlton might see him on his way after six years at the club.

The transfer deadline for Nationwide League clubs is next Thursday and despite having a number of trials Royle says that released youngsters like Robert Dickinson and Lee Beevers have as yet been unable to find clubs: “At the moment there is no interest in Dickinson or Beevers, they are just playing and training with us.

“We'll see the situation as we go on. We've let them out on loan and on trial at a few places. It's getting hard as everybody's cutting down on the size of the squads in all the divisions. The PFA list of released players will be a bigger list than ever before in the summer.”

Town themselves have been looking at two trialists, full-back Ashley Probets and central defender or midfielder Alfie Kamara. Both are in their second year at Arsenal's Academy with Probets playing in the reserves at home to Wimbledon and against West Ham last night while Kamara was involved against the Hammers.

Royle says they have impressed the Town staff: “They did OK in the reserves last night and we're going to consider looking at them a little longer. That will be a decision made by the Academy, they are still student age and if we do take over their apprenticeship they will come under Bryan Klug.

“I have an opinion on them, don't get me wrong, but I leave that side of things to Bryan. They aren't doing too badly at the Academy!”

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