Deadline day - a fan's take

The final piece of our transfer puzzle is the trickiest one to find – a striker, preferably with Premier League experience.

The problem is that finishers, number nines, are a bit like Oasis reunion tour tickets. Everyone wants them and there aren’t enough to go around.

It looked like the man to spearhead our attack was going to be Armando Broja from Chelsea, but despite the deal seemingly being agreed, an injury concern killed it – for now.

Since news first broke that Broja might not be coming we’ve been linked with multiple players. The YouTube highlights reels of certain strikers have suddenly had a spike in page views as Ipswich fans checked them out.

Aside from someone to play up top, I’d say the rest of the squad has been covered - and then some.

Ipswich fans were promised a bold approach to the Premier League, and the signing of Chiedozie Ogbene from Luton for a reported £8m took us over the £100m spending mark.

As the saying goes, we’re not going to die wondering.

The approach has partly been to raid the best of the Championship, with Jacob Greaves, Sammie Szmodics and Jack Clarke now in the door, and partly to bolster these young guns with the likes of Kalvin Philips, Ben Johnson and Jens Cajuste – men who’ve played at the top level either for club or country, or both.

We have strikers in the building of course – Szmodics, Liam Delap, Ali Al-Hamadi, Freddie Ladapo and George Hirst – but the latter is injured and it’s been clear that the club want someone with established top-level pedigree.

Ladapo and Al-Hamadi are likely to move on, either on loan or permanently, freeing up a squad space for that sought-after finisher.

And when that person arrives, the most eye-watering transfer window in the history of Portman Road will be over.

Steve Mellen is the former editor of ITFC magazine Meet Me At Sir Alf, and also represented fanzine Those Were The Days