 Saturday, 30th Apr 2011 08:58 Town manager Paul Jewell says he and his staff have been actively working on finding the summer signings to improve his squad for some time. Jewell, coach Sean McCarthy, chief scout Steve McCall and reserves coach Chris Kiwomya have all been spotted watching games in recent months. Jewell said: “We’ve been actively working for quite some time. I know there have been some reports in the press this week linking players with us and we’re always going to have players linked with us because we’re in the market to try and get good players for next season. “I don’t want to comment on speculation but we have actively started to try to get players in for next season, quite a while ago actually. “I anticipate it being a busy summer but we’re trying to make it less busy by starting two months ago. “I don’t want supporters thinking that all of a sudden now we’re thinking we’ve got to get players in. I’ve known from day one that we’ve needed to improve.” The Blues boss says there’s cash to spend but not the fortunes likely to be available to Sven-Goran Eriksson at Leicester: “There aren’t going to be ridiculous amounts of money to spend but other than maybe Leicester - and I might be wrong here - I think we’re all chasing the same type of players. “I had a meeting after the Reading game with the owner in Ireland and I was told roughly what I’ve got to spend and what wages we’ve got. “It’s not as if there’s millions and millions to spend and we’re going to be competing with about 14 other clubs for the same type of player. I want hungry and, obviously, good players. “We just want to try get and them in and maybe we’re one step ahead of some teams because some don’t know whether they’re in the Premiership or the Championship.” Jewell would like his new additions in as soon as possible but admits that that is unrealistic: “The players that we want to bring in are players that can compete at the higher end of the Championship. “In an ideal world when we come back for the first day of pre-season training on 29th June you want all your players in, but my experience tells me that that never happens. But if we can get the majority of the big players that we want to get in early, that would be fantastic.” Jewell has regularly been spotted at Roots Hall in recent weeks with 18-year-old midfielder Kane Ferdinand believed to be his target but the Town boss says he’s been at many other matches: “We’ve looked at a few players. You go to games on the off-chance to take a game in. I went to Southend on Friday, I went to another game on Saturday to watch a player and I’m just trying to watch players at all levels. “When you look at some of the players who are playing well in the Championship, a lot have come from the lower leagues. Look at Simeon Jackson, who was scoring goals for Gillingham and people said ‘he’s scored goals at that level, can he score goals at this level?’. I think he’s scored 13 or 14 goals for Norwich. “There are players who are knocking around the lower leagues as well as at the top end who can hopefully do us a job.” The Town manager is clear on what qualities he is most looking for in his signings: “You look at Barcelona on Wednesday night. Messi’s goals were fantastic but the hunger and desire he showed to get across the near post [was terrific]. “He’ll show that every day in training and that hunger’s what I want to bring here. I’m not saying it’s not here but I’m trying to get even more of it - people who come in through the gates every day and train to the best of their ability every day and want to be winners. “We’ve got some really good players here, but when it comes to certain key aspects at certain times of the game, we lack a little bit of a killer instinct, desire, a winning mentality. We don’t have enough of it and the teams that have had success have always had that.” A prolific striker or two remains Jewell’s priority: “I was looking through the tables the other day and as average as we’ve been at times, if we had someone who had got us 25 goals this season we would probably be somewhere close. “That is the main area we need to address — a goalscorer. We need someone who loves scoring goals, who will knock their grandmother out of the way to score a goal. We just haven’t got that at the club at the moment.” But the Blues manager is also looking at all other areas of his side including the goalkeepers, as he says all other bosses would: “We’ve offered both Brian Murphy and Arran contracts for the summer. Like any other manager, I’m always looking. If there’s better out there that we can afford, we’re interested, whatever position that is, whether that’s goalkeeper or centre forward. “If Pep Guardiola could find someone better than Messi, he’d be interested. Good luck to him on that though!”
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