Steve Cotterill eager to keep one of Shrewsbury Town prize assets Josh Vela

It is understood Blackpool remain interested in a move for midfield star and last season’s player of the year Vela, but Cotterill confirmed as of yesterday afternoon there had still been no bid.

Town, who tomorrow welcome Gillingham aiming for their first points and goals of the league season, do not want to sell a prize asset before Tuesday’s deadline.

Cotterill said: “It’s exactly the same, there had been no bid, when you see things from these websites, it’s agent-driven, they ring an agent and then a story becomes a story.

“I can say to you right now, 100 per cent, we have not had an offer for Josh Vela, so there’s not even anything for us to consider.

“Would we want to sell Josh Vela? No. We wouldn’t.

“But, we might not have wanted to sell other players and you end up selling them. It happens in this game, there’s a lot of things to take in a transfer, like where’s the player in his contract? How much would a club offer? Can you get a replacement? And what’s the player’s attitude like?”

Town have so far this summer recruited nine new signings, of which Marko Marosi, Ryan Bowman and George Nurse were reported to have cost fees. Cotterill revealed Shrewsbury have so far parted with £80,000 in transfer fees.

He added: “A lot gets made of transfers, if we were mid-table or top half there’d probably been less asked.

“I think I should mention there’s a budget to work to, which is why it takes a long time to get players in.

“We’ve got nine players in here for the cost of 80 grand, when some are undisclosed, it might be because they are not fees.

“We’re not flush with money here, so it has to go into what we think is good for the future and also a bit of ‘the now’, we understand that.

“With the nine in with 80 grand, it’s something like eight-and-a-half grand a player, I think that’s not bad business on the players in.

“There is a budget, no different to last year, not any bigger, and we would like to add a couple more.

“But we’re competing with somebody who can pay four times what players can earn coming here, then they’re not coming here, we all know that. But we are accepting of that.”

“Within the last week we’ve waited a little while on two players, now he won’t come because they’ve got injuries, and we were the only club in town for the other, then a Scottish Premiership club comes in, then three Championship clubs, then a club in France. All those, let alone League One clubs, will outbid us. The only chance we have is potentially a relationship with that player.”

“We haven’t got a big budget and if we brought in any old player then the players we’ve got will keep them out the team and they’ll only become subs.

“We have to try to keep digging, to find the good players to come in that can enhance us, or even keep us to a certain quality, without bringing a lot in.

“I can fill it, the team picture could look fantastic, but it might not make the team any better. We have to hold our nerve with this. We can’t blow people out the water with.

“We tried to talk to a player out of contract and we got nowhere near what he went for to a club in this league, nowhere near.”