Town Send Simms To Coventry

Everton Striker Ellis Simms is Coventry bound and good riddance! I was never much of a fan of this player, and at those inflated prices it is wise of Ipswich to pull out.

The 22-year-old Oldham-born player was interesting several Championship clubs, including Town, and his former loan club Sunderland; along with Bristol City, Middlesbrough, Blackburn, Swansea, and Stoke City. Most pulled out quickly but Town bid around 4 million for the forward, but this was not seen as good enough for the Toffee’s, who wanted a transfer war to commence and this is when Town lost interest.

We have no need to be unduly concerned. Simms is not as good as some people seem to think, and we could do a lot better for less than half his asking price. The problem we face is that a lot of time has been spent trying to get this Simms deal over the line, and CEO Mark Ashton is preoccupied this season with a lot of other things, with a new TV channel and the job of overseeing new developments at Portman Road which includes our new playing surface! He is not on his own but everything takes time.

I have been raving recently about Roda forward Dylan Vince but I have been informed that he was not on the list of the 12 striker candidates that Kieran Mckenna gave to Ashton earlier in the window, and the Blues still have many irons in the fire. The trouble is time. We are just over three weeks away from the new campaign, and we have to bed these players in, get them up to match fitness, and getting to know the players and the system that our manager Kieran McKenna employs. New players need time to adjust to a new football environment.  Watch this space. Something will happen soon!