Kevin Nagle speaks out on Huddersfield Town's transfer plans after Alfie May speculation

Huddersfield Town owner Kevin Nagle has had his say on the club’s reported failed pursuit of Alfie May.

It was widely reported last week that the Terriers were beaten to May’s signature by Birmingham City, with last season’s League One top goalscorer penning a three-year deal with the Blues.

Football Insider claimed that Town had an offer of £750,000 accepted by Charlton Athletic for the 31-year-old striker, before the same outlet went on to state that Birmingham had “hijacked” the Terriers’ deal with a £775,000 bid.

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Nagle stopped short of naming May or Birmingham, but the owner has confirmed that the Terriers missed out on one of their targets. He went on to state that Town weren’t willing to pay “an extraordinary amount” in wages that would have been required to secure the transfer.

“I’ll say this much. The club that got him, they weren’t even thinking about him four days before that,” Nagle said in his latest video diary on X.

“I think what I’m impressed with is they’re kind of watching what we were doing. They actually targeted at least one, maybe two other players that we did sign. I’ve been impressed by the fact that that club is looking at our recruitment team, and seeing what kind of moves we’re making.

“What I’m going to say is we’re not going to pay what that person got paid. There were a lot of rumours that went out on it, I’m not going to validate that, but it’s not fair to our players in the locker room.

“He was paid an extraordinary amount, if you look to see what his history was, it just didn’t make [sense]. Now maybe he’ll turn out to be great, and I hope he does, just not against Town.”

Town have managed to get four deals over the line this window, with Lasse Sorensen, Mickel Miller, Herbie Kane and Antony Evans having all joined the club. The Terriers have targeted players who have performed well at League One level in recent seasons, with Sorensen and Evans arriving off the back of award-winning campaigns with their former clubs.

Miller has two League One promotions under his belt in recent seasons with Rotherham United and Plymouth Argyle, while Kane has been part of a Barnsley side that has reached the play-offs in the past two campaigns.

“I think for the early going, you can see we’ve made some very strategic moves,” Nagle said. “These are all very strong League One players, and they’ve got a history, some of them are the best player in their position according to certain data analytics. We had some targets, and we’ve got every single one but one.”

Town remain keen to add to their squad further, with more than four weeks until the League One season opener at Peterborough United, and just under two months of the transfer window remaining. Nagle is targeting further reinforcements to Town’s frontline this summer, having already brought in Rhys Healey and Bojan Radulovic in January.

“I feel very good about our transfer [window],” the owner said. “Again, you can see the planning that’s going on, I think I’d say Mark (Cartwright) and coach (Michael) Duff, those guys are really doing a terrific job.

“We’ve got our ideas on a couple of other people as well. We need to shore up that top part, we all know it, and I feel that we’re going to not be that far away.

“We’ve got a way to go before everything closes, and sometimes the pieces of the puzzle will sort of find their way, and sometimes you have to go after them, so we’re kind of in that middle phase right now.”