Derby v Ipswich: Loanee Blues striker David McGoldrick will return to Nottingham Forest after Saturday’s game at Derby County, due to the terms of his loan deal.

Ipswich Town said that the 25-year-old had signed until May (the season finishing on May 4) when he arrived in January, but manager Mick McCarthy has now revealed that it was a 93-day ‘emergency’ loan due to restrictions placed upon them by the Football League.

A deal to sign the front man on a two-year permanent deal in the summer has been agreed in principle, though nothing is guaranteed.

“The loan deal was for 93 days and we took him until the Derby game,” revealed McCarthy.

“He’s a really good player and before anybody asks me why we didn’t sign him, he couldn’t have three registrations for one club in any season.

“He’d been registered with Forest and he’d been registered with Coventry as a window-to-window loan and you can’t have three.

“We would have signed him permanently at the time, but we couldn’t so we had to take him on an emergency loan, so it was either miss him for five games at the start of the loan or five at the end. We decided to get him straight away in case anyone else came in for him.”

Both club and player have stated that he will sign a two-year permanent deal with the Blues on July 1, but McCarthy says that’s not yet formalised. He said: “He can’t sign a pre-contract agreement, that’s illegal. You can’t do that.

“Forest have said he won’t be getting a new deal in the summer though and I fully expect him to sign here.

“We’ve discussed it with him and he wants to stay, but until he comes out of contract we can’t do anything about it. There’s no point in me trying to hide away from that fact because everybody knows.

“Has he loved it here, has he liked it? Does he want to stay? Stay in the league? I think he does. He’s been loved here by everybody and he’s enjoyed his football, so we’ll see.”