Boss Roy Keane says 17-year-old striker Connor Wickham’s rawness is part of what makes him so difficult to defend against. Wickham looks set to be recalled to Town’s starting line-up tomorrow when the Blues face Cardiff City at Portman Road.
Keane said: "He’s very raw, but raw is a good, I like raw. Let’s not over-coach the boy. He’s very raw, but give me raw all day.
"There’s a danger of babysitting these boys, ‘you’ve got to do this with the ball…’. Players have got to learn to make their own decisions and they only get that playing games regularly, playing against different types of teams, bigger players, stronger players.
"That’s what we like about Connor,” Keane added. "Sometimes when you watch him train you think the boy’s not really been coached. The boy’s not really ‘mechanical’, he’s hard to predict.
"With a lot of these young players who end up playing for England’s U19s or U21s, technically, they’re good players, but they’re predictable.”
Keane says that is something which can happen to players coming through the academy system: "I think, if you are going to be critical of academies, maybe a lot of the players are wrapped in cotton wool and are probably getting over-coached. I think they have been criticised for that.
"They’re not streetwise and not playing against players a lot older them in rough-and-ready leagues. But having said that, when you see the facilities and the opportunity these young boys are getting, it’s fantastic.
"It comes down to the player, I don’t care what you provide for him, it comes down to that hunger and that desire. You can have the best coaches and the best facilities, but if the player hasn’t got the hunger and 100% desire to become a footballer, they will not become a footballer, no chance.”
Getting back to Wickham, Keane says he’s done everything possible to earn himself a start: "He’s given me a bloody headache, but that’s good. He’s saying to me, ‘you’ve got to play me on Saturday’, from his 45 minutes the other night, simple as that.
"He’s not kicked a ball for two and a bit months. He’s not playing for the reserves, he’s skipped the reserves, he’s saying ‘I’m ready for the first team’.
"Some players want six bloody months in the reserves, ‘give me 45 minutes, give me an hour…’. Why not skip all that nonsense and train and play like it’s your last day on the planet?”
Meanwhile, Wickham has been named in the England U19 international squad for their European Championships qualifying group games in Belgium next month.
England play Albania on October 8th, Cyprus two days later and finally the hosts on October 13th. Wickham, who scored the winning goal in the final of the European U17 Championships last summer, is yet to win a cap at U19 level.