New Town signing Ryan Stevenson was confident that the Blues have what it takes to pull themselves out of their relegation scrap even before watching his new team-mates thrash leaders West Ham 5-1 at Portman Road on Tuesday. The 27-year-old joined from Hearts over the weekend for a fee of £50,000, signing an initial 18-month contract.
Stevenson said: "It’s a massive club and we’ve got top, top players in the squad. I think that it’s a bit of a surprise seeing where we are but it’s something I’m sure we can get out of very quickly, with the manager’s experience and the backroom staff as well, I’m sure that we’ll be climbing the table.
"[The position in the table] was never something I spoke about with my agent. The good thing about the Championship is that if you go on a run of five, six or seven games, you find yourself in a totally different position. I’ve been in worse positions, so it’s not something I’m worried about.”
In any case, he says he relishes a battle: "I’m Scottish, so of course! Football’s football, if there’s a tackle there to be won, I’ll try and win it, if there’s a header, I’ll try and win it. If there’s an opportunity to try and score a goal I’ll try and do that, if there’s an opportunity to defend I’ll try and do that.
"No matter what it is, the least that fans deserve is 110% when you pull on their strip, and I’ll be doing that to help the boys out of the situation we’re in.
"With the players and the manager that we have, I think we’ll be looking up the league rather than down sooner rather than later.
"Football’s all about momentum and it can go one way or the other,” he added. "When you’re winning, things seem to just fall for you, they just go in, someone clears the ball and it hits your backside and rolls in the goal. When momentum’s the other way, it’s comes off your backside and rolls by the post.”
Having not played since December 17th due to his wages dispute with Hearts, he says he’s itching to get going with the Blues: "It’s about a month and a half now, so I’m eager to get back playing. It’s been nice to come in and train for the last couple of days and meet the boys. I’m really keen to get started and hit the ground running.
"I think the team’s got some top players and I know it’s going to be a challenge for me to break into it but I hope to come in and do well, score goals and help the team to climb the table.
"The type of person I am, I want to come in and play every game. It’s been a hard three or four months for me, not just the last month and a half, with the circumstances up at Hearts.
"I’ve had a couple of days’ training down here and I’m busting to get training for Ipswich and playing in the Championship.
"It’s up to the manager. It’ll be a difficult task for me to get in but I’ll try every single day to get into his plans.”
The former St Johnstone and Ayr man says that once he’s in the team, he’ll be looking to help Town to promotion: "It’s a Premier League club in waiting. It’s been in the top flight before. I’m ambitious, I want to try and get in there.
"The Scottish boys that have come down are doing well in the Championship and there are Scottish boys who are doing well in the Premiership.
"I really wanted to come down and have a crack at English football. Hopefully things will work out but if they don’t you can always look back and say that at least I gave it my best shot.”
The club was familiar to him from his time as an Academy scholar at Chelsea before he returned to Scotland at 18: "I knew the training ground and facilities as I played here when I was a youngster at Chelsea many moons ago. When you come down and see the facilities and the stadium, it’s a great club to come to.
"I did my apprenticeship at Chelsea, I had just over four years there, great years, then I went back up to Scotland. But it had always been my plan and ambition to come back down here.”
He says that he had interest from other clubs in the Championship, League One and League Two as well as from north of the border, but was always keen on joining Town: "There was good interest from Scotland and from down here as well but I had two or three days to mull things over, to look at things, to speak with my agent and my family. My wife, she obviously makes the decisions, and she was shoving me down here.
"It’s a massive club and as soon as I knew Ipswich were interested it was the only option I was going to take.”
Born in Irvine, Stevenson says the Town squad has been very friendly, even if Jimmy Bullard has already had something to say about his 20-plus tattoos: "He’s been a top man. He came in and straight away was on my case! He’s been really good Jimmy. They’ve all been very good. I flew down on Saturday and came in and met the boys on Sunday.
"It’s always the same when you go to any new job, you’re a bit nervous, you’re sitting there in the corner not knowing what to say.
"I said to my wife and my mates the other night that it’s a really good dressing room. They’ve all made me feel very welcome and I’m looking forward to getting started.”
He says the tattoos were the result of a "mad couple of years” and that he hasn’t had any new ones for some while: "The last time I had one done was about two years ago. I had them done in my early 20s and I think the wife just got fed up with it and she rules the roost, so they stopped!”
Having signed for an initial 18 months, the midfielder says he hopes to extend that stay at the end of the season if all goes well in the next few months: "We can look at it in the summer depending on how I settle down. Hopefully everything will go well with my missus having the baby [in six weeks’ time] as well.
"Being the kind of player I am, the last thing I want to do is come in if I’m not playing. I wouldn’t want to do that.
"Too many players these days hang about just in the squad, picking up their money. I’m not that kind of player, I want to come in and I want to play.
"There’s an 18-month contract and we’ll see where we are in the summer. If I can force my way in and we’ll look at where we are and see if we can extend the stay even further, there’s an option.”