Chris Lakey Glenn Roeder has outlined the main thrusts of his summer recruitment strategy as he prepares for a genuine assault on promotion next season. Roeder said that two thirds of a promotion squad would need to be Premiership quality and that more loan players would be coming in.

Chris Lakey

Glenn Roeder has outlined the main thrusts of his summer recruitment strategy as he prepares for a genuine assault on promotion next season.

Roeder said that:

Two thirds of a promotion squad would need to be Premiership quality

More loan players would be coming in

He was optimistic Gary Doherty and Mark Fotheringham would stay

Care needed to be taken over recruiting young players

He would consider bringing in a "wise old head" to replace Dion Dublin

The price has to be right for anyone more players to leave

Shola Ameobi was too good for the Championship

Roeder is facing what he regards as one of the toughest tasks in football management: recruitment.

The City boss has shed nine players deemed surplus to requirements and says he will be close to bringing in the same number of new recruits.

However, he has set a high selection standard, insisting that teams with promotion aspirations need players who are capable of playing in the top flight.

"You can't win the Premiership with Premiership players," he said. "You win the Premiership with top international players who are a cut above the Premiership player.

"If you want to win the Championship you have to have at least two thirds of a squad that would play in the Premiership, probably at the bottom end of the Premiership. They are basically what I call in-betweenies. They are not top-notchers, but they are better than the Championship. You always have to have players with ability for the division up. If you are only going to have Championship players in your squad that is where you will stay.

"You are not going to get 11 in the Championship, not unless you are incredibly lucky or incredibly rich - you have to be looking at five, six, seven players in a team that is going to automatically win promotion, who would not look out of place in the Premiership. They might not be top notch but they wouldn't look out of place.

"West Brom - you can pick out at least seven, maybe eight, of their players who have been in the Premiership, weren't stars but didn't let themselves down either."

Two players for every position would be the target in an ideal world, but finances and availability may dictate otherwise.

"If that is achievable that's what we will try for," he said. "But to be honest I think there will be a couple of players on my list that can play two positions and you wouldn't know which was their best position, so we will have a couple of players coming in that can double up, which is always very useful to have around the place."

Roeder will again be looking to loan players, but could be hampered by the fact that they might not join the fight until late in the summer, when he wants as many players in by the time pre-season begins on July 1.

If a "new Dublin" becomes available - meaning right position, right price, right character - then Roeder would be tempted. But at the other end of the age scale it's a case of taking care.

"When you target young players - and everyone wants to target young players - you pay a premium for that; you buy what is called potential and potential always costs more than what the actual ability of the player is at that particular time," he said.

"And what you are hoping is if you can afford potential the actual potential is realised and then goes on to be better.

"In other words, increases in value. Sometimes you buy young players and they don't even reach their potential and you end up wasting your money."

Roeder's scouting programme isn't restricted to the Premier League, but his "in-betweenies" requirement mean shopping in the lower division is unlikely, unless he is 100pc certain a player can make the step up.

"You are guessing whether they can step up," he said. "I have seen quite a bit of League One football this season. I went to a game the day before we played Sheffield Wednesday - it was woeful.

"You are sitting there trying to imagine one or two players you want to look at - how could they step up to the Championship?"

Roeder has been linked with Newcastle striker Ameobi but that appears to be out of his league, while he is thinking "positively" over the contract offers to Doherty and Fotheringham.

However, he confirmed that there had been no interest in any of his contracted players - and that he would be reluctant to allow them to leave.

"It is very early days for that to happen - some managers need a holiday so much they clear off straight away for a couple of weeks, but I haven't had any calls about our contracted players," Roeder added.

"I am not particularly encouraging any, but we will wait and see what happens. We are not in a great position to be selling players when we need so many coming back in, but as always, if someone was interested and if the offer was big enough you have to look at everything."