Town to recieve £50,000 from Bent deal at weekend

Left Ipswich for 2.5M last summer

With Liverpool and Tottenham reportedly interested in signing Darren Bent in the summer, for a fee around £8 Million, the transfer could fund Royle's promotion push.

Royle has made no secret of the fact that he would love to secure the services of Jimmy Juan and Ricardo Fuller for next season to launch a promotion push but the Chairman reiterated in his programme notes on Saturday that no transfer funds will be available for the Blues boss unless the club receives some outside investment or if season tciket sales exceed the 18,000 mark.

Thursday night saw the closing deadline of the early bird tickets, with 12,000 the figure that has been talked about, though an official count will be released in the coming days.

A fall from last seasons number could mean the club selling star players again.