Town skipper Luke Chambers has hailed the arrival of Leicester loanee Chris Wood for the remainder of the season.

The New Zealand international striker is hoping to complete a promotion hat-trick after previously helping West Bromwich Albion, as well as his parent club, to climb out of the Championship and into the Premier League in recent years.

Chambers said: “Bringing in Chris is a fantastic boost for us. The window is there to be used for loans and teams are making signings, and we saw Chris produce the goods for Leicester last season. He’s a great addition and it adds to the firepower.

“We’ve also brought in Luke Varney after Noel Hunt, who made an immediate impact, got injured. Freddie Sears is also producing the goods and it means more options for the manager because the guys who have come in all want to play.

“It’s frightening, really, the impact Freddie has made. He got his two goals the other night against Birmingham and has really hit the ground running.

“He fitted in straight away and while being without David McGoldrick has been difficult, because of the quality he has produced for us over the past 18 months, Freddie has stepped straight into his shoes.

“He’s making runs down the channels, he’s getting balls into his feet and he’s showing the pace that we maybe lacked before.

“He has shown he can stretch teams and he has been brilliant. He’s a hell of a good player and maybe dropping down to Colchester has made him a better player.

“We took a chance, brought him back to the Championship and he’s repaying us.”

Chambers was asked why English football’s second tier is so competitive this season, with just seven points separating the top seven clubs ahead of this weekend’s fixtures, and he responded: “In my opinion the longer a club is in the Championship they seem to get stronger and stronger. Teams like Burnley and Leicester, they were like that and went up last season.

“There can be a large turnaround in players but when you keep the core of the team together — as Brentford and Wolves have done since they came up last year — and you bring in people the way Watford have it all adds to the quality at this level.

“The teams at the top are consistent and don’t seem to be slipping up at the moment. There are eight teams with a great chance of going up and I’d imagine that every single one of us wants it as much as all the others do.”

Chambers expects a number of strong challenges in a physically demanding game at Carrow Road but insists that will be nothing new.

He said: “It will be like all our games. We don’t go anywhere without a few tasty challenges and we will work as hard as anyone can possibly work.

“That’s what we have based our season on, outworking teams and having a player like Daryl Murphy — everything he touches turns to gold at the minute.”

How confident is the skipper of delivering his trademark fist-pump celebration to the 2,000-plus Town supporters on Sunday? “I know it would mean a hell of a lot to the fans but I’m not even thinking about it at the moment.

“If it comes at around four o’clock on Sunday, fantastic, I’ll be giving it the large one.

“But until then we’ve got a hell of a lot of work to do. We know it’s not going to be easy, in fact it will be one of our toughest games all season, but you never know what’s going to happen in any game, never mind a derby.”

Photo: Action Images

battyblue added 07:29 - Feb 28 Go get them Freddie you can do it!
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strikalite added 08:47 - Feb 28 If we get to see his fist pump Sunday it'll be the biggest ever and feel like promotion!!! It'll really stuff it up that lot.... Come on lads, if ever we needed a top performance then this is it..
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