Blues boss Mick McCarthy says he’ll know Jay Emmanuel-Thomas by his given name until he does enough to earn the sobriquet JET. The new Town manager says the 21-year-old has “terrific ability” and can be “anything he wants to be”.
"I’ve told him, he’s Jay Emmanuel-Thomas to me. I’ll call him JET when he looks like he’s got a rocket up his backside! Until then it’ll be Jay to me,” quipped McCarthy.
"He could be anything he wants to be,” he added. "He’s got terrific ability and I need it out of him.”
"[It has to come from him], we can help, of course, without a doubt. We quite fancy him up the pitch at centre forward.
"He’s 6ft 3, he’s a big, powerful guy, he can run at people. It’s getting him to go in the box and [knowing] what to do in the box to get a goal. Terry’s working with him and he’ll be getting more of that this morning.”
The Blues boss says the former Arsenal academy man would give him another option up front if he shows his worth as a striker: "If he does, he’s still not going to be like Tyrone Barnett, or Daryl Murphy for that matter.
"If we get him to do those things, we’ll have a real player, someone that backed in, that won headers and did all the hard yards. He’s technically very, very good, but he’s got to get other stuff into his game.”