Chairman and CEO Mark Ashton says the Blues will be looking at recruiting a different type of player with the physical attributes required to compete in the Premier League.

Having been relegated after one season in the top flight, Town will be looking to make an immediate return in the campaign ahead.

Speaking on TalkSPORT, Ashton was asked what lessons can be learnt as the club aims to win promotion from the Championship and then secure a longer-term stay in the Premier League next time around.

“I think it’s recruitment, recruitment, recruitment,” he said. “One of the things that we learnt was that gap in the physicality, the physical attributes of players that are required in the Premier League.

“When we look to recruit players now in the Championship, we have to adjust and amend how we recruit players. We need to look at players with the physical attributes because the reality is [manager] Kieran [McKenna] can coach them, but you can’t develop the physical attributes to the level that you need to compete.

“So it’s an evolution for us. We have to look at recruiting a different type of player, a player with a different set of physical attributes.

“But let’s be under no illusions, if we get back to the Premier League, it will be equally as tough. We have to take the learnings from what was a very tough season.”

Ashton reiterated that McKenna, who speculation but little more linked with the Brentford job handed to former Blues loanee Keith Andrews earlier today, is fully committed to the club for the campaign ahead.

“Kieran and I talk on a daily basis,” he continued. “I gave him his opportunity when we took him from Manchester United, he took it with two hands and he’s done extremely well.

“Success brings challenges, he’s been coveted. We sat down right at the end of the season at my house one night, we looked each other in the eye and I said, ‘Are you in? Are you in for this, Kieran?’. And he was very clear, ‘Absolutely, Mark. I’ve got a job to do, I want to take us back up’.

“There’s always going to be noise around him but there also has to be a bond of trust and he’s looked me in the eye and said, ‘I’m in, I want to rebuild this football club’. We work very closely.

“There will always be noise around him, that’s the nature of the beast, but he’s a man I believe has integrity, he’s told the fanbase he’s going to be here and he wants to get us re-promoted.”

Photo: TownTV

tractorboybig added 06:18 - Jun 28 well you cant do worse than last season, other than delap you recruited failures and two jokes.
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shakytown added 07:10 - Jun 28 Some people here have no clue on how players are signed. You can't just pick the ones you want and you have to be able to afford them and stay within the rules also the player needs to be willing to come to your club. get a brain fools!!!!!!
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Harlestonblue added 07:47 - Jun 28 darkhorse28 so obviously a Norwich troll
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Steve_ITFC_Sweden added 07:56 - Jun 28 I defer to Mark Ashton's experience and assume he must know what he's talking about. But personally I don't understand this "physicality gap" between the PL and the Championship. Are we to think that the average PL player is somehow stronger than the average Championship player? I'd have thought it is much more a question of skill and technical ability that separates the two. Anyway, great news that Kieran appears to be totally committed to continuing the journey. The next season could be quite entertaining and hopefully much more enjoyable in many ways.

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Blue_Heath added 08:04 - Jun 28 This is a point I alluded to the other day, we had Tuanzebe, Burgess and Delap three players with the physicality. Now we have none, whilst the consensus is we are stronger this season than last time we were in the championship I fear how we improve for next season. Please unearth some beasts in the next few weeks Ipswich. A point he didn't make was that we need a pick themselves XI that functions the midfield and forward links rarely worked last year. When Hutch is sold there will be plenty of cash I hope we can get some players in soon so they can hit the ground running.

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Tedray added 08:24 - Jun 28 I like it Darkhorse28.I feel that at present we are drifting and we need some sort of closure from last year.There is currently something missing. The manager needs to come forward from his current low profile and explain why his policies failed so dramatically last term and give us his reasoning for this and how he intends to change things the upcoming season. A little humility or even suggestion of an apology would not go amiss.Offer himself up for a little scrutiny.We need some guidence and direction.to give the fans confidence for the fast approaching hostilities.

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Bazza8564 added 08:52 - Jun 28 Tedray. Closure from last season will only come once the PSR year is over, June 30th, we start signing players again, and the season starts and we win some games. Everything else is simple regurgitation of the same comments we've heard time and time again. £140m quid invested wasnt EVER going to be enough to keep us up last season with the backbone of a squad born in league one. We've added the best we could afford and who would come and we will do it again this summer. But even then, as Mark says, when we get back it will still be the same. It will take 3 maybe 4 cycles on the yoyo to be good enough to get to a half way position in the PL. We aren't Real Madrid, we have no divine right!

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flykickingbybgunn added 09:10 - Jun 28 I agree with bazza. We went up and gave it a go but with inadequate resources. This is like reading a thriller, we are only just starting chapter 5. Quick, turn the page, I cant put this down..
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Generic added 09:21 - Jun 28 Does anyone know DarkHorse in real life? I think a welfare check is in order.
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BobbyBell added 09:37 - Jun 28 We had two wonderful seasons with exciting football. All too quickly forgotten by some on here. The Premier league came too quick and the truth is that the gap is massive. The money needed for a Premier league squad is way beyond reach in one season. It could take 2, 3 or 4 seasons of Premier league income to build such a squad and surviving just one season is proving incredibly hard. There is a group of clubs now going up and down which are too good for the Championship but cannot survive in the Premiership. Maybe a squad of 25 players worth 30 million plus is the requirement now but it's way out of reach for a newly promoted club. Then there's the wages!!!! Then there's PSR and FFP. The financial riches of the Premier league has created an ever widening canyon between them and the EFL and it will eventually become a closed door. MA & KM have found some real gems of young players but one or two isn't enough and even 15 proven experienced Prem players would set you back close to half a billion to buy and a huge wage bill on top. Some on here think it's all so easy.

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OldFart71 added 09:46 - Jun 28 The hard part is getting a balance where we have the attributes to see out a three games a week scenario of the Championship against the other needs of being in the Premier League. Many Premier clubs for instance have two top class keepers whilst it can be said Town doesn't have any. Whether there's a need to restructure this part of the team will depend on how many other positions we need to replace/strengthen. We know midfield is ultra important along with the position vacated by Tuanzebe and also Delap and possibly Omari ?

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blues1 added 09:48 - Jun 28 Bazza8564. Brilliant post. Totally hit the nail on the head. Too many of our fans, certainly those who post on here, or on social media, simply expect everything to be perfect, all the time. Fact is, we wouldnt have survived last year, regardless of who we signed. .we simply weren't ready for that lge. So yes, as Ashton says, we have to try something different recruitmentwise. But even that may not keep us up should we go straight back up. Too many think after the previous 2 years, that the rebuilding of the club was complete, rather than still at an early stage. In a way, its was a shame we had so much success in those 2 years, as it seems to have distorted their thinking. Maybe some years ago, I may have got carried away by it all, but being somewhat older now, I can see things from a more balanced view. And yer, sometimes that leads to me to criticise other fans on here somewhat harshly at ti

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ArnieM added 09:48 - Jun 28 SteveITFCSweden: I think players in the PL are just more athletic. And by that i mean they are physiologically different to the average Championship players. At a cellular level,their muscle composition is likely to be different. Yes, through training you can build muscle and get stronger, and to some extent muscle fibre characteristics do vhanfw. But the genetically acquired physical make up of an athlete's body (whatever the sport), is predetermined and us the difference between what makes an athlete and very good athlete and able yo perform at certain levels, and an elite athlete that can perform at a certain physical level, for much longer. Muscle fibres have different speeds of activity and are know as type I and Type II fibres. They twitch at certain speeds and have certain endurance levels. Whilst underused muscle fibres will change from one characteristic to.the other , the over numbers of these fibers are likely to be in higher numbers in elite athletes. This is what marks them out as higher performers. Other attributes such as strength and skills and game understanding will also be higher in the elite althete. Training / coaching just hones and reinforces these already owned attributes.

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blues1 added 09:51 - Jun 28 Bazza8564. Brilliant post. Totally hit the nail on the head. Too many of our fans, certainly those who post on here, or on social media, simply expect everything to be perfect, all the time. Fact is, we wouldnt have survived last year, regardless of who we signed. .we simply weren't ready for that lge. So yes, as Ashton says, we have to try something different recruitmentwise. But even that may not keep us up should we go straight back up. Too many think after the previous 2 years, that the rebuilding of the club was complete, rather than still at an early stage. In a way, its was a shame we had so much success in those 2 years, as it seems to have distorted their thinking. Maybe some years ago, I may have got carried away by it all, but being somewhat older now, I can see things from a more balanced view. And yer, sometimes that leads to me to criticise other fans on here somewhat harshly at times, and I get negative feedback for that. But thats down to the fact i simply hate seeing the total negativity of some, when the club is in the best position for many, many years.

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dangerous30 added 09:59 - Jun 28 I think in life we learn everyday yes we got relegated and players will have learned how hard the premier league is. We have too look at everyone at the club and ask is championship there Limit if the answer is yes then we need to move that player on. We are going to have a hard season this time around because everyone will be out to beat us and hopefully we can build a team to take us forward but whatever happens I will always be behind this club.

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Bluewhiteboy added 10:12 - Jun 28 Ashton is the reason we went down last season yet fans kiss his backside thinking their going to get a lift in the Q8 to away games. We had the brightest manager in the league, huge backing yet he came up well short. Wise recruitment and we would have stayed up comfortably. He says all the right things but doesn't fullfill
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Bazza8564 added 10:37 - Jun 28 Bluewhiteboy, couldn't disagree more. The brightest manager in the league? Beyond Slot, Frank, Moyes, Guardiola, Howe, Arteta, Emery and Galsner? What rubbish. Hes a bright manager with huge potential and worth hanging onto, but hes 38, give him another decade he will maybe rank alongside some of those. And we will. He's onto a good thing at this club and he knows it. Give the guy a break. And huge backing? £140m is chump change to build a side in the PL. Liverpool have just spent £209m on FOUR players, we rebuilt the basis of our squad with the entirety of what PSR would allow us to spend, and bought players for the future. We had to, do you think players like Esse or Mbeuno would come here? Build slowly, build solidity, don't break the rules and get punished, and eventually with continued investment and a couple more cycles you have s hot of staying there. As Blues1 says, it's the constant negativity of some, and the total misunderstanding of what Mark is doing over the long term that leaves some of us mystified. Do you not listen to what he says? "It's the end of the beginning, not the beginning of the end". If you want immediacy, swap allegiances and follow Liverpool fella, youre in for a long wait for that sort of success with us

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ArnieM added 10:41 - Jun 28 What coukd Ashton have done any different in just 6-8 weeks. Bare in mind he was also trying to bring PR up to the ridiculous levels demanded by the PL hierarchy ( not Lutons stadium was/ is nowhere near the level of ours, yet had no problems stagging so called PL games) . Ashton was working absolutely ridiculous hours daily.... I'm not durevegst else he coukd have fone. You can't drag higher levrl (senior) players into this club and demand they sign on the fitted line. Club redevelopment takes time. After our unexpected second promotion he had literally 8 weeks. What woukd YOU do in that time?

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Gforce added 10:47 - Jun 28 Cheer up everyone for gods sake. I'm sure by the end of next week we'll see a couple of new faces in the building and probably a couple more the week after. There is loads to look forward to next season. The current squad without signings,would I'm certain be top six,add 5/6 quality signings to that and well,I wouldn't want to be the opposition ! Chin up everyone,enjoy the cricket and tennis and roll on August !

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RobsonWark added 10:50 - Jun 28 And we signed Jayden Philogene,,,Oops!
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1960H added 10:54 - Jun 28 I hope Ashton had learned from last summer's recruitments, in my opinion too many players were signed that were no better than those we already had (with the exception of Delap and Cajiste) we have an unbalanced squad with far too many wingers and no10s making it almost impossible for the manager to name a settled side, what was the point of Philogene? who looks like he will blow over in the first puff of wind and Muric? Clearly nobody did much homework on him! All they had to do was look at clips on Match of the day to see how poor he was, I met a Burnley fan on holiday who could not believe we paid them 8 million for him he said most of their fans would have paid us 8 million to take him away a complete liability.

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Ryorry added 11:03 - Jun 28 Victorysquad - and KM’s future as a “Manger”?
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Ryorry added 11:10 - Jun 28 Victorysquad - and KM’s future as a “Manger”?!
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barrystedmunds added 11:20 - Jun 28 Any chance of seeing one or two of these “different players” quite soon? I feel the competition are getting a head start on us!
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Bazza8564 added 11:29 - Jun 28 1960H Muric got slated within 15 minutes of his debut and just went to pieces. Delap, O'shea, greaves, Townsend, Omari, Szmodics, Ogbone, Palmer, Johnson, Clarke, Philogene, all poor recruits? We were unlucky to suffer season ending injuries with Ogbone, Burns and Jaden, and we have a much younger, higher potential squad, many of whom are full or U21 internationals (assume you don't rate international manager options either?) and youth on their side. Are you still saying that the list above is no better than the lads who got us up from league one? I'm frankly intrigued to learn of the list of players you think we should have signed, would have 100% come, would have kept us up, and would have been better than the squad we have for next season......Oh and all within a £140m PSR cap with the whole squad revamped.

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