January Latest: No Substantial Inquiries

U’s fans have certainly been expecting January to be a busy month for Joe Dunne’s side in terms of transfer activity, and Dunne himself is already feeling the effects with the window just a few days old.

Speaking to BBC Essex, Dunne said: ‘It’s been busy, that’s for sure, and we were busy all day on Wednesday trying to work one or two things out.’

One of those was the arrival of Dominic Samuel on loan from Reading, but with the U’s in a fight at the wrong of the table, it is the need for experience that keeps cropping up.

Although Samuel may provide technical quality, the question on many U’s fans’ lips will be one of how much experience may be acquired in the next three weeks or so.

‘We spoke after the Crawley game about the need to bring in experience, but how many we can is a different thing,’ Dunne explained.

‘Experience is very expensive to bring in and, at times, it can be out of our league a little bit.

‘You can only get one or two experienced guys on the money that they’re on, and if you want that quality then it’s difficult to afford as you need to ask them come down from the Championship.

‘However, these youngsters give us energy, enthusiasm and they play without fear. None of the youngsters have let me down so far.’

With a fairly large squad for the budget that the U’s must sustainably be able to afford, it seems imperative that a few of Dunne’s fringe players will need to make way before any new arrivals can pull on the blue and white, with John-Joe O’Toole the first to make way in rejoining John Ward at Bristol Rovers.

However, the club’s hands are tied in this case as there must be interest in those players before they can be moved on, and Dunne confirmed that there has been little interest so far in doing so.

‘I’ve had one or two inquiries about some of our guys but there’s nothing substantial so far.

‘We do have Sanchez [Watt], Craig [Eastmond] and Jabo’s [Ibehre] wages off of the bill now their loans have finished though which frees up a bit of the budget, so we may be able to do a few things without losing one or two.

‘But for the quality that you want to bring in then one or two may have to go out.’


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