“Very Important…”: Kieran McKenna has spoken about the club’s plans for the January transfer window

Kieran McKenna, Town’s manager, has spoken about the club’s plans for the January transfer window.

In what is usually regarded as Town’s best ever January transfer window, the Blues brought in Massimo Luongo, Harry Clarke, Nathan Broadhead, and George Hirst – on loan at the time before the striker made his move permanent in the summer – a year ago.

The quartet went on to play vital roles as the Blues went on a second-half charge that earned them promotion back to the Championship.

When asked if the idea is to augment his team similarly rather than making sweeping changes during the winter window, McKenna stated, “We’ll try to add quality to the group and character to the group that will help us.” That happens in every window.

“This will be an important one and we’ll try and add to the group as best we can within the resources and the possibilities that we have every window.”

McKenna wants to complete the club’s January business as soon as possible: “That was always, always beneficial last year.”

“I believe all of the signings were relatively early for January signings, but especially Massimo, who we had in training since this time last year, so we had a 10-day head start on January 1st.”

“Getting players in as soon as possible is important, especially given how we train and work; it’s not always a next-day transition.” We believe that players would benefit from spending a little more time with us.

“We’ll try to get things done as soon as possible, but that’s not always within your control.” When trying to sign someone else’s players in January, you don’t always have control over the deadlines. We’ll do everything we can.”

Fulham striker Jay Stansfield, a long-time Blues target who is now on loan at Birmingham, appears to be at the top of McKenna’s January want list, having been the subject of a Town enquiry more than a month ago.

It remains to be seen whether the 21-year-old will be available on a permanent basis, with another loan possibly an option for the frontman, who is tied to the Cottagers until the summer of 2027, with the club having an option for a further season.

McKenna says he’ll be thinking about permanent and loan additions in January: “I believe you have to consider both in the Championship.”

“We didn’t do many loans in League One because we felt that in that market, we could add players who would have a big impact for us, go to the next level, and we could add a lot of value to, and we feel like we’ve done that in the Championship.”

“Of course, I believe that every team would prefer to have 22 of their own players in the building, who are permanently attached to the club, in our case, their own assets to continue developing.”

“However, this isn’t always the case, and for a team like us, in our position in the Championship, you can sign players on loan whose value you probably wouldn’t be able to match as a permanent signing.”

“We have to stay open to both possibilities and, of course, try to make signings that will help us for the second half of the season and be able to make an impact in the second half of the season, while also sticking to our medium and long-term plan of how we develop the squad and the team in the years ahead.”

‘We’ll have discussions around that balance and try and find the right balance with both in this window.”