Ipswich Town manager Kieran McKenna says he will explore the international transfer market as the club looks to continue its upwards trajectory.

The Blues boss has signed 24 players over four transfer windows so far, all of them arriving from British clubs and half having started out in Premier League academies.

Speaking at last week's Fans' Forum, McKenna reiterated that he always looking for 'young, hungry, athletic and technical' players that can grow with the club in its pursuit of reaching the Premier League.

Asked if he might consider recruiting from abroad, the Northern Irishman said: "It's something that we are having a lot of ongoing discussions about internally.

"Most football clubs would agree that it's great to have players from the local area, like we do, and it's great to have a core from your country.

"But to take the team and the club to another level, we need to be really vigilant of players outside our market because the premium on British players is really high. There are only so mny players who fall into our catchment and there is a lot of competition for those players.

"Bringing in international players who tick the four boxes that I spoke about is something that we'd like to do, but it's not a process to take lightly. It needs to be right.

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"We spoke about it a lot in League One, and there were some options we could have taken, but we made a conscious decision as a club that it was a really hard division to integrate international players into. We feel that the Championship is a better league to do that.

"You have to consider how long they will take to settle and what sort of period of time you can afford to give them. You have to be set up from a logistical point of view. You could have players coming over with children, or it could be a younger player who has to settle into a new country and learn the language.

"It's an area that we want to be increasingly competitive in. It's now about making sure that everything is set up as best we can so that when we do recruit from that market we can give the players that come in the absolute best chance of succeeding."

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Town's chief executive Mark Ashton oversaw several foreign signings at previous club Bristol City to varying degrees of success.

Ipswich's chief operating officer Luke Werhun, who worked alongside Ashton at Ashton Gate, said: "We've had experience in the past where we've had players come over, very, very good players technically, but really felt homesick, didn't feel integrated, part of the country and it's failed.

"With domestic players you generally know what you're getting but there's a premium to that, so we've got to try and strike the balance between the two."

Ipswich hired Sam Williams as the club's new head of recruitment last year. He previously worked as first-team recruitment analyst and academy scout at Manchester United alongside McKenna and his assistant Martyn Pert.

Pert himself has travelled extensively and is said to have a huge contacts list outside of the UK.