THE knee-jerk clamour for a new striker, in the loan market, is ill-founded.

THE knee-jerk clamour for a new striker, in the loan market, is ill-founded.

Ipswich Town may be firing blanks at the moment, but I don’t see a journeyman loanee striker coming in to solve any goal-scoring problems between now and the end of the season.

Town are a distant 12 points adrift of the play-off zone, with just 13 matches remaining, so I don’t hold out much hope of making a late dash for the top-six. That is far-fetched.

There seems little point, therefore, in spending unnecessary cash on a new temporary striker, just for the sake of increasing the attacking options between now and the end of the season.

Town are also playing far too well to go down, and remain 11 points clear of the bottom three. A mid-table finish, therefore, appears the likely outcome this May.

And given the mess that Town were in when Paul Jewell took over, less than two months ago – just three points clear of the relegation zone – that would be a satisfactory start to Jewell’s reign.

Instead, new boss Jewell would be wise to hold fire on the recruitment front, and instead start making plans for this summer. And I’m sure that’s what the 46-year-old Liverpudlian is already doing.

Joint leading scorer Jason Scotland endured a frustrating afternoon in front of goal, in the 2-0 home defeat by Portsmouth on Saturday, as did teenage hot-shot Connor Wickham, who failed to live up to his billing with a flurry of missed chances. Substitute Tamas Priskin also squandered a good opportunity to bag a late goal.

But whereas many Town fans, from an encouraging Portman Road crowd of 23,345, were pleading for Jewell to act quickly and sign a new striker on loan, I believe it’s better to save money until this summer.

Proven goalscorers at this level are not available in March, but they will be in June.