The League One club had a busy transfer window, bolstering their squad with 19 new additions, including Conor Chaplin, George Edmundson, Rekeem Harper and Sone Aluko.

 

Ipswich wrapped up their summer transfer business with the acquisitions of Celina and Morsy from French club Dijon and Championship club Middlesbrough, respectively, on deadline day.

 

 

Reflecting on Ipswich’s deadline day deals for Celina and Morsy, chief executive officer Ashton insisted that the Tractor Boys did not hastily move for them and had planned to sign them.

 

Ashton, who admitted that he is not a fan of deadline day deals, explained that Ipswich were keen to sign Celina and Morsy and were tense as they waited to iron out the final details of their transfers.

 

 

“If you talk to my staff and particularly the likes of Andy Rolls, he would tell you Mark normally does not do last-minute.com“, Ashton said on the Kings Of Anglia podcast.

 

“We all knew that as a leadership team that we wanted to bring those two players in and ideally they would have been done before deadline day.

 

 

“I don’t like deadlines, I think the closer you get to deadlines the more likely you are to make bad decisions.

 

“I was based at the training ground that day with Luke [Werhun], Andy Rolls, Paul [Cook], coaching staff and analysts.

 

“The two deals were well under way, these weren’t deals that we were starting if you’d like to motor on on deadline day, we were well advanced.

 

“It was fairly calm, as ever in negotiations there were one or two heated discussions, but Paul and his staff were fantastic, they stayed until the end just to be around and be supportive, make sure you got a cup of tea and a bite to eat.

 

“It was calm, but probably tense.

 

“We were waiting for documentation on Bersant and we still had a fair bit of to-ing and fro-ing to do on Sam Morsy with player, agent and club, would like to thank Neil Bausor and Middlesbrough for their professionalism in getting that across the line.

 

“And ultimately we got there in decent shape.“

 

Having strengthened their squad significantly during the summer, Ipswich will now be looking to push for promotion to the second tier.