McKenna on why he signed goalkeeper Alex Palmer on transfer deadline day

Ipswich Town manager Kieran McKenna has explained why he decided to sign

goalkeeper Alex Palmer on transfer deadline day.

The Blues brought in the 28-year-old from Championship club West Brom in a £2m plus

add-ons deal on Monday, tying him to a three-and-a-half year deal.

Speaking ahead of tomorrow’s FA Cup fourth round game at Coventry,

in which Palmer could make his debut, McKenna said:

“We’ll make the decision for what we think is right for the team and right for the group.

We’ll do that for tomorrow and for every game.

“With Christian (Walton) out the department was short with just Aro (Muric) and Cieran Slicker,

who is very talented but who hasn’t played as many senior games, so we felt it was important to add.

“Alex coming in gives us another experienced goalkeeper,

strengthens the unit and gives us the option to make decisions that we think are going to be best for the team.”

Muric has endured a difficult start to life with the Blues since making an £8m switch from

Burnley back last summer. Asled how the Kosovan had taken the addition of Palmer, McKenna said:

“Aro has been good in training.

“Of course we spoke to all the goalkeepers. They all realised, even just from a numbers perspective,

with Christian being out for maybe eight weeks, that,

with the importance of the next 14 games to the football club,

we couldn’t take any chances in terms of the strength of the goalkeepers available.

“All the goalkeepers were aware of the reasons why we felt we needed to strengthen the department.

And we wanted to strengthen it as strongly as possible in terms of getting a goalkeeper who’s

ready to come in and compete for the shirt.

“All the goalkeepers fully understand that situation and that, at this level,

we need to be as strong as we can in each position. They’re all ready to take on that competition.”

On Palmer, the Blues boss added: “He’s certainly a good communicator – that’s one of his strengths.

“Christian has specialisms different to Aro, who has got different specialisms to Alex and Cieran Slicker.

We just expect each of them to bring the very best of themselves to the team.”