PNE director speaks to the Lancashire Post
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00:00Day after deadline day you made your third signing of the window
00:04How do you sort of reflect on the incoming business Lewis Gibson, Jadon Magoma and Ryan Porteous yesterday?
00:12I'm pleased with it. I think we went into the window believing we needed an
00:18additional centre-back. We knew we'd been targeting Lewis for a while and
00:24we've been making it clear for some time that we'd like a left-wing back if we could find one and
00:30so that Kane could play on his more natural side on the right.
00:35So the fact we brought
00:38Jadon in and then we brought Lewis in relatively early, we were very pleased with.
00:42We weren't necessarily going to add any more, but it was always one of those
00:47if there was an opportunistic one we could do we might but the budget was tight.
00:54Obviously it depended in part on whether Josh Bowler was going to stay or not because clearly we were paying for him.
01:00And we managed to do a deal with
01:04Luton and Forest
01:06last weekend or last Friday to
01:09free up some of that money and then
01:12sadly, and I was at a game on Saturday with with James Wallace and we got a message from Paul to say that
01:19Jadon had had a scan and it was
01:23worse than we thought initially
01:25and therefore we should try if we could to use any money we got to bring in a right-sided centre-half.
01:34We always have a list, James Wallace has got a list he talks to Paul about all the time
01:39and the question then was who on the list was available?
01:44Ryan was number one on the list. We weren't sure if we could get him and then we spent
01:50following the game on Saturday when we left, spent the time talking to
01:55Ryan's agent and to Watford about what the art of the possible was and we did the deal at 12 minutes past nine on Sunday night.
02:02Yeah, so after the Jordan injury was there still scope to get maybe two in or was it that defence just became the absolute
02:09priority and then if there was something else
02:11potentially? So I think midfielder was the one the manager had been talking about before that.
02:17Look,
02:18there's a balance between individual players who might be available and what positions you need to fill.
02:24If I'm sitting there just looking at the squad, apart from the fact that obviously Ben Whiteman's injured,
02:30the one part of the field you could argue we were well supplied with options is midfield and
02:36therefore it was never a priority in terms of spending money in that position and particularly if it was not for a permanent signing.
02:44Having said that there was a particular player that the manager would have signed if he could have done.
02:50That player became unaffordable anyway
02:54because of the deal that the club were insisting on and
02:58irrespective of whether we'd done Ryan or not, we would not have been able to
03:02do the deal. It wasn't in our opinion value for money for a loan
03:07and it was way above anything that we pay any of our players in the squad. I mean way above.
03:14So I
03:16talked him through long and hard with Paul on Saturday night. I've talked him through on Sunday again and
03:22his decision was
03:24recognising what the demands of the squad would be that he wanted to bring in the right-sided centre-half, he wanted Ryan
03:30and that's why we went down that route.