Blues boss Paul Jewell doesn’t expect striker Michael Chopra to be unduly worried by any stick he gets from his old fans when Town take on Cardiff on Saturday. The 27-year-old joined the Blues from the Welsh side for £1 million in the summer.
Jewell said: "I don’t think Chops will worry about what he’ll get from the supporters. The most important thing is that it’s not Cardiff against Michael Chopra, it’s Cardiff against Ipswich.
"You have to be careful as an individual not to make too much of a game, just try to treat it just like any other game because it is just another game.
"Sometimes you see players go back to their old clubs trying so hard to impress and it doesn’t work out for them. We just want Chops to play his normal game and we’ll be fine.
"He’s played for Newcastle and he’s played for Sunderland, so I don’t think going back to Cardiff will bother him too much. He did well for them, they did well for him."
The Town manager says that to some extent a few vocals from fans is a sign of what a player has achieved: "I don’t envisage any problems, he’ll get a bit of stick but if you don’t get any stick that means you’ve not been any good anyway!”
Jewell is unsure why Cardiff decided to sell Chopra in the summer: "I don’t know. I think he was probably one of their highest wage earners at the time and they were going through a transitional period - Dave Jones had left the club, Jay Bothroyd was going to leave the club.
"Sometimes people make the decision that some people have a shelf life at a certain club, perhaps it was time for a change for Cardiff and time for a change for Michael. When I heard he was available, I thought for £1 million it was a terrific deal for us.”
After two goals against Brighton when he was last in action, the Blues boss says his star striker is out to add to his season’s total of four: "He’s been lively [in training]. He’s a one-off character Chops. He loves scoring goals and he’s really looking forward to going on a run now.”
Meanwhile, former Blues striker Billy Clarke has joined Sheffield United on a month's loan from Blackpool along with fellow Seasider Matt Phillips.