Blues boss Paul Jewell believes finding out about players is more important than results during pre-season. Town face West Ham at Portman Road in their only home friendly this afternoon (KO 3pm).

Jewell, whose team has lost 2-0 to Luton and 2-1 to Southend in their last two matches, said: “Pre-season games you can get carried away.

“I spoke to one manager [the other day] and he said we need to get beaten in pre-season because they’d scored something like 17 goals and haven’t conceded one yet. Nobody likes losing but it’s more important to find out about players.

“We’ve got a few young players in the squad. At Southend we had Cressy, Josh, Emmanuel-Thomas, Massimo, Luke Hyam, there are a lot of young players in there.”

He concedes his side need to improve and that the squad needs further additions: “We need to get better, we need to get more quality players, stronger and have a nasty streak.

“At Southend we had 21 crosses go in, but have we got enough people in the team who really want to score a goal? And have we got enough people in the team who when it comes into our box are prepared to stick their head in?

“We are a small team and it’s something we need to address. I know Barcelona are small, but we’re no Barcelona.”

Meanwhile, goalkeeper Marian Kello, who was recently on trial with the Blues, is now spending a similar spell with Wolves. The ex-Hearts man has also had offers of contracts from clubs in Turkey.

Story syndicated from TWTD.co.uk

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