Blues boss Paul Jewell was delighted with the way new loan signing Massimo Luongo settled into the Town side during Wednesday’s 2-0 pre-season victory at Cambridge United. The Tottenham midfielder caught the eye playing at the most defensive point of a diamond midfield.
Jewell said: "He’s a good player. I was aware of him last year. I’m good friends with [Tottenham assistant first team coach] Tim Sherwood. I spoke to Tim, I spoke to Harry Redknapp. I’ve seen him play a couple of times and he’s always impressed me.
"Considering the first time he trained with us was on Tuesday, for a 19-year-old I thought he showed great confidence.
"It was only a pre-season friendly, but you can see he’s got that touch of quality. That system does suit him. We’ll have a look at a couple of different systems before we kick off. You can tell that he’s a really good footballer.”
The Town manager wants the Blues to be versatile and says they need to build on Wednesday’s performance ahead of the start of the season, which begins with the Capital One Cup match against Bristol Rovers at Portman Road on Tuesday 14th August: "We’ve got lots of options, lots of different types of systems that we can play and we may be flexible but we’ve got an awful lot of work to do before we get to the games that matter and I think we all know that we need to improve as we go along.”
Meanwhile, Town and Derby are continuing to discuss a fee for Rams’ striker Steve Davies, according to reports in the Midlands.
The 24-year-old has been on Jewell’s radar since May with the player understood to be keen on the move, but the clubs have been unable to agree a fee with Derby believed to want £1 million and Town understood to be valuing him at around half that figure.