Ashton: Window Was Tough
Friday, 5th Sep 2025 20:13

Blues CEO and chairman Mark Ashton admits it’s been a tough transfer window and he’s glad that it’s now shut.

Town signed 11 players over the summer with 14 moving on, although those raw numbers don’t tell the full story of a window which saw record fees received for first Liam Delap, £30 million, and then Omari Hutchinson, £37.5 million, on-off deals for incoming signings, players withdrawing from fixtures while interest was ongoing, four signings in the last week, including one from Norwich City, and then two of the stars of the back-to-back promotions leave on deadline day.

Speaking in an interview for TownTV with former skipper Matt Holland, now a club director, alongside manager Kieran McKenna, Ashton admitted he was glad the window had come to an end.

“Yes. I think I always am, to be honest,” he said. “I feel like I’ve been in a transfer window for about a year. I don’t think we’ve ever spoken so much.

“From the moment we got promoted to the Premier League, I genuinely feel like I’ve been in a transfer window consistently.

“And that’s OK, but anyone who works in this industry will tell you that that’s tough because it moves on a hourly basis, let alone a daily basis.

“I’m always glad when it’s shut, we have to be ready for the next one, that will come around pretty quick. It’s been tough.”

Asked why it was so tough, he reflected: “A club that’s been outside the top flight for 20 years, has had back-to-back promotions to the Premier League, the one thing you can’t buy is time.

“It’s impossible to be prepared and you’re always chasing time with infrastructure, staff, resource, knowledge. You just can’t get enough time, you can’t get ahead of the curve and recruitment’s the key part of that.

“Historically now, every club that gets promoted from the Championship to the Premier League finds it really tough, particularly in that first season. When you’ve been out of the top flight for 20 years, only had one season in the Championship to stabilise and then have got to bounce and go again, it’s really tough.

“We pushed the envelope financially with regard to Financial Fair Play, the board and ownership were fantastic and I think the players we recruited primarily were good asset values for us, and that’s been shown this summer.

“But it’s tough. And that jump from the Championship to the Premier League is going to get no easier, that’s for sure.

“And I think the other big thing for that is that when we got promoted we recruited players, the Delaps, Omaris on permanent deals, that’s not easy. There are a lot of people involved from Kieran, myself, recruitment staff etc to get those players into the club because they’re sought-after.

“What Kieran did then was, even though we weren’t winning every week, was an incredible job at developing that talent.

“And that showed probably from May onwards when we started to hear the noise around Liam. A consequence of our success in recruiting and developing players was that other clubs wanted those players and were prepared to pay big money for those players.

“I think it’s important that the fanbase understand that the first thing we did was Liam was try and persuade him to stay at this football club, and I don’t think from a football perspective or a financial perspective that was an issue, it was simply his desire to play in the top league.

“Omari was similar. A different story. Axel [Tuanzebe] the same and I can understand that and its frustrating for us but Kieran’s development of the talent allowed us to drive from two players almost £70 million of income to this football club.

“This football club’s never done that before and if we’d said three years ago we were going to do that, I think people would probably have laughed at us. That brings challenges.

“If you look at the industry as a whole right now and you see some of the challenges big clubs like Newcastle are having, we’ve had similar challenges here trying to retain some of the players.

“Whether it was those two boys, whether it was Nathan Broadhead or whether it was a handful of other players, let’s be really clear, because of the recruitment and development Kieran’s put into them, top league clubs wanted to buy them and we had to fight them off.

“Ultimately, some have moved on but that brings challenges in retaining before you’ve even got to bringing others in.”

Photo: TownTV

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BurleysGloryDays added 20:41 - Sep 5 Superb as always
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poet added 21:29 - Sep 5

Hopefully some fans who have had far too eager and unrealistic expectations for the start of this season, will have had their feet firmly planted on the ground by Ashton’s words.

Starting at a canter considering the number a of adjustments that have had to be made, was never a realistic expectation.

However, in my opinion, those adjustments to this squad will soon pay dividends, and we’ll be climbing the table,

MickMillsTash added 21:42 - Sep 5 Would be really interesting if he published a diary of the last 5 months Ultimately all will be judged on how many wins we get
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Van_Blue added 23:00 - Sep 5 Interesting comments about long term re-building of the club - yes promotion is the goal but it is in the context of making the club better and better year after year.
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Devereuxxx added 00:24 - Sep 6

I think the most noteworthy comment there is how even though we weren't getting results, Mckenna was still developing those players and making them attractive targets. What he did with Delap was remarkable. In a short amount of time he took a jobbing championship striker into a player wanted by Champions League clubs.

He also makes a good point amount recruitment last summer. That recruitment has been rightly scrutinised, but I don't think we signed a player that hasn't retained or increased their value. Delap and Hutchison went for a premium. We would not sell O'Shea or Greaves for less than we paid for them. Johnson would be a profit in any regards. Perhaps Philogene is an outlier for that, but he still has time. Ogbene as well but the injury has to be taken into account.

The only question in that, is that have we lost players due to that investment, Woolfenden, Chaplin etc. But that has to be the price of success.

ldnj added 00:32 - Sep 6

He talks about asset values but of those recruited. Obviously some big gains on the sales but the other purchases still there it would be interesting to see what are now their expected values. Also, the existing assets had value, from effectively no market value, but commentators imply eg. Wollfenden's was not maximized, I wonder why that was harder when he was on a new contract ? Salary + fee for the purchaser ?

Bazza8564 added 09:14 - Sep 6

When sheepshanks, Milne, Evans etc etc where at the helm, I had zero confidence in the underlying position. With the Cobbolds you just kew things were very tight. But MA fills me with confidence and trust that our football club is in the very best hands possible.
What hasnt been said here is that despite the investment, we have loans with obligations or options on players and haven't had to pay up front, so our window shows a net cash inflow between £20-£30m.
I'm finding the international break a pain personally, I know we will use it wisely but that Sheffield United game can't come soon enough. A strong win and we are off and running again....

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darkhorse28 added 09:44 - Sep 6

‘Relegation is progress and we’re building a young English team to develop’

That kind of tough. Sometimes Mark thinks, acts and talks like he’s been in the game 5 minutes not 35 years.

It’s one years experience repeated 35 times. A complete lack of experience at an elite level, and a completely different strategy to everyone else.

That EFL players wouldn’t be good enough was obvious, it’s not hindsight, anyone in football knows it’s been the case for a long while now. It’s too global, and too elite.

And retaining talented young players, with relegation, equally impossible.

Now we’ve done a complete starter’s pivot, but we really haven’t have we…., only two contracted signings from abroad and still mostly former WBA connection.

It’s not Marks fault. He’s a good operator at this level, exactly what we needed when he came in, and deserves respect for that.

He never was the solution for our next steps.

You can’t do a job for 35 years and then change your entire ethos…, it doesn’t happen.

Like McKennas champions league contract, some awful decisions. And again it doesn’t need a crystal ball to see the risks awarding manager with zero experience at that level, with one of the biggest contracts ever on the clubs history. At a level we need to be in Europe to justify.

Gamechanger also have been the right fit at the right time, but they aren’t football people.

They’ve run the club the same way Evans did, just with better outcomes for a short while.

Trust one or two people with everything, literally everything.

No elite club operators like that anymore, and haven’t for a long time.

Brentford. Brighton, Bournemouth, the structures are fixed and the people pivot around constant excellence and actual strategy.

We pivot a club around two people, and it’s already failed, this isn’t getting a better outcome than a £10 million legacy squad, and after spending generational wealth of £200 million, that’s damning.

Gamechanger are selling up.

That (hopefully) will be a very good thing, football people potentially, who will hold Mark and McKenna too to the standards they said they were at.

Agency and accountability, not enabling and cowardsess because change might reduce their valuation.

More of the strategic vacuum, will lead to more long term decline.

McKenna would likely have thrived at Brighton, where he only has to coach, he’s great at that, not so great at many aspects of management.

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darkhorse28 added 09:51 - Sep 6

Incredible Jon at developing talent.

That’s gas lighting at this stage.

Clarke, Philogene, Sammie. Phillips, Greaves, even Omari all regressed massively, as did many others.

One player kicked on, ONE. Delap, and he was sold for £30 million and was so hard to get over the line, we’d spent most of the summer offering significantly more money for a Greek player.

Delap clearly wasn’t the top target, or even close.

The revisionism, to save face, it’s pure EGO.

Sick and tired of seeing our fans treated like village idiots.

We didn’t improve players, we didn’t improve as a group, it was a progressive decline of belief, motivation, and performances and results.

Even Omari looked like a step too far, nobody stepped up…, not Mark, not McKenna, not the players.

Nobody.

The hospitality experience was excellent, those staff stepped up, and the support stepped up, fantastic.

Nobody else did,…, it was chastening hi poor we were on the field, Sunderland have done more in three weeks than we did in a season.

As Brett has told Mark to his face!

Don’t pisss in my boots and tell me it’s raining.

We aren’t village idiots…, go and take another selfie with a Norwich player…, that’ll help you keep the bidding dogs happy.

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Stato added 10:00 - Sep 6

From the comfort of my sofa it looked like yet another poorly executed window. Ashton has been able to bully clubs of similar size to us because we currently have deep pockets but in future we must improve by acting much quicker. I believe we will go up as Champions (and so dio the bookies) but when that happens we need much better recruitment than last time or we'll be back down again

JewellintheTown added 10:54 - Sep 6

Way too many experts in our fan base that base 100% negative opinions on a fraction of 1% of actual factual information.
Even this interview won't convince them that they know nothing in comparison to MA & KM at what's going on in the club.
Everyones entitled to an opinion but some are just best left not shared. Some are just entitled.
Time will tell, but seems some want to moan no matter what.

BlueInBerks added 18:18 - Sep 6 Dark horse. Are you an AI?
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Bluewhiteboy added 19:06 - Sep 6

Way to many rose tinted glass wearers or is it just to many weak individuals desperate for a thumbs up.

You do realise fans can disagree or voice concern at not winning a single game especially after a disappointing relegation season. The transfer windows been concerning best players have left replaced very late with unproven players. Also losing the backbone of squad that brought about 2 promotions is naturally going to upset a few.