Central defender Ãvar Ingimarsson admits that he’s had a frustrating time since joining the Blues on a free transfer in the summer after his release by Reading. The 34-year-old Icelander suffered a thigh injury which caused him to miss much of pre-season but was back in action in time to make his debut at Bristol City on the opening day of the campaign, only to break down again in the days following the 3-0 win at Ashton Gate.
The one-time Brentford and Wolves man looks set to make his second start — and full home debut - for his new club when the Blues take on Doncaster at Portman Road on Saturday.
The 30-times-capped Iceland international said: "To come to a new club and only play the first game of the season and then be out for four or five weeks is not really ideal.
"You’re always playing cat and mouse to get your fitness to the same level of the players who have been training fully while you’ve been injured.
"It’s been frustrating but I’m getting close to fitness and if you get the chance, you just have to take it.
"Injuries are no fun, especially when you move to a new club. You want to be involved and show people that you can play and all that stuff. Being injured you can’t really do that.
"People start talking about how you’re always injured, that’s the nature of it. In the end all you can do is get fit, get on the pitch and try to perform. It’s no good to keep talking and talking.”
After his initial setback shortly after joining the club in July, he says he thought he was doing well when he made it into the team for the season's opening fixture: "I was working very hard with the fitness and physio departments and I was doing lots of running, so I felt fine and went through the first game without any problems.
"But something happened the day after, it swelled up and the rest is history. I had a tear in my thigh but that’s fine now, I haven’t felt it or anything and I’ve been training very well for the last few weeks, waiting for my chance.”
And that chance appears to have come with Ibrahima Sonko out with a hamstring injury and Damien Delaney sidelined due to a stress fracture of his foot.
Ingimarsson says there are a lot of players fighting for places at the heart of the Town defence these days: "We’ve brought in two very good centre-halves in Danny and Sonko, they were doing well and that just means you move down the pecking order and have to wait for your turn.
"At the moment we’ve got six centre-halves — Sonko and Danny, me, Damo and Tommy and Jack — and the nature of it is that if people come in and play well and get results, if you’re out of the team you won’t get the chance to play. But I think if the competition is healthy and fair, it’s a good thing.”
Having finally got his opportunity to show his new fans what he can do, Ingimarsson, a close friend of ex-Blue Hermann Hreidarsson, says Rovers’ new signings such as El Hadji Diouf will be looking to do the same: "Doncaster would not have added them if they didn’t think they could add something extra to their team.
"Every time you get new players at a club they want to prove a point, so I’m sure they will give them a lift.”
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