Blues assistant boss Terry Connor wishes Kieron Dyer all the best at Middlesbrough — as long as the former Town man doesn’t enjoy his debut at Portman Road too much. The 34-year-old former England international was recently back at Portman Road, spending one training session with the senior Town squad, before joining the Teessiders this week.
Connor says Dyer trained with the Blues’ youngsters for the most part: "Mainly with the youth team, he had one session with the first team when we had a general session.
"He knows Bryan Klug, the academy director, very well and he still lives in the area, so he wanted to come in and do some training, and we were delighted that he wanted to come in and train.
"He had one session with the first team and made it clear that he wanted to continue and play. All we can do is wish him all the very best. If we did our little bit here to make him maintain his fitness, then that’s great.
"Obviously, we wish Kieron all the very best and we hope that he stays fit and plays games but [today] you put all that to one side, it’ll be two teams going hammer and tongs to get a result.”
The 50-year-old coach was impressed with Dyer during that session at Playford Road: "Kieron will always look fit and sharp if you get him on a training pitch because he’s a quality player. The issue with Kieron has been whether he can maintain that over a period of time.
"But when he trained he showed his class in the session we did with him, as you’d expect. And it was good for the other players to see that, a little bit of quality that you don’t always get in your group.”
Meanwhile, Dyer is to pay for a Town academy U13s squad, including his son Kie, to travel to play in a youth tournament in Barcelona. The midfielder is a long-term sponsor of the academy, having progressed through its ranks as a young player himself.