Christophe Berra was delighted to get back into action with the Blues as a half-time sub at Colchester on Tuesday, but admits he’s currently a little way off full fitness. The 28-year-old knows he’s got a battle on his hands to usurp current first-choice centre-halves Tommy Smith and Luke Chambers, but is up for the challenge.
Berra said: "It was good to go out and get a feel of it and a feel of being in the XI. Towards the end of last season I missed the last two and half months with Wolves, so it’s good to get back and get in some match practice.
"I was a little rusty, the turning and twisting, but you kind of work your way into the game. Obviously they had the big boy up front, who was quite mobile and strong, so he made it difficult but it was good to keep a clean sheet and it was a good performance from the boys overall.
"It a big improvement from Saturday and it’s just building towards that first league game of the season at Reading, which will be difficult. But, in this league, I think this season could be the hardest season of all.”
Having been a free agent after his release by Wolves in May, the Edinburgh-born defender has missed out on much of pre-season, although he says he joined in at one of his former clubs until his move to the Blues was confirmed: "You can only do so much yourself. I’m quite lucky in that sense, I’m quite professional in doing it.
"For the last two weeks I trained with my local team Hearts, where I came through as a youth player, so I got a touch of the ball there.
"I trained with Ipswich for the first time on Monday and to get 45 minutes against Colchester was good.
"I’m maybe two to four weeks behind everyone, the others in the team were in their fourth or fifth game and I was in my first.
"Obviously, I’m a wee bit behind. It’ll take time, two or three weeks, but hopefully I can get training every week, get that match fitness back and that sharpness and work my way back into the team.
"I’m quite naturally fit but there’s nothing like match practice, so the more minutes I get under my belt, the better.”
Berra, whose father is French, confirmed that he was close to joining Rangers earlier in the summer: "That was [on the cards] at one point. They’re a massive club but I just wanted to stay down in England just now. I’m only 28 and my peak years are ahead of me.
"I wanted to come down here, we’ve got a good squad and we can push for promotion and get to the Premier League, where everyone wants to be.”
Joining Town sees him reunited with his one-time Wolves bosses Mick McCarthy and Terry Connor, who took him to Molineux for £2 million in January 2009: "They signed me in the transfer window when we won the Championship and I played the last 15 games of that season and then I played regularly in the Premier League.
"I owe a lot to them and I’ve gained a lot of good experience. I’ve played quite a few games for Scotland and I want to get back in the squad.
"I think I played 16 or 17 games consecutively but as I wasn’t playing at Wolves I dropped out a little bit for the last couple of games.
"My aim is hopefully to get into the Ipswich team by getting fit and putting in good performances. That’s going to be difficult because there’s good competition there but if I can do that and play regularly I’ll get back into the Scotland team and get back playing in the European qualifiers.”
Berra isn’t the first player to join Town citing the Blues boss as one of the reasons for deciding on a move to Portman Road. He says players know where they stand with McCarthy: "The manager’s a well-respected man throughout football.
"Everyone knows who he is, everyone respects him and no one has anything bad to say about. He’s straight down the middle, he’s honest with you and tells you the truth.
"Everyone knows what he wants and if you don’t do that you’ll know about it. And if you don’t do it you won’t be in the team.
"We’ve worked together for three and a half years, had good times and bad times, but that’s all part and parcel of football.
"The platform’s there to push on and we want to try and get promotion, and if not promotion, we want to try and get in the play-offs.
"I had other offers, but Ipswich is a massive club, 30,000-seater stadium, a nice town and the training ground is first class as well. The environment’s there, it’s all in place to enjoy your work and be successful.”
Why did things go so badly awry for Wolves? Berra isn’t sure: "I don’t know. It’s happened to many a team, big clubs as well.
"It’s hard to say, a lot of things went wrong, from top to bottom, but they’ve got a new manager now and they look to be rebuilding and I’m sure they’ll be successful this season and go on and hopefully get promoted and get back to where they belong.”
With Smith and Chambers established in the Town backline Berra knows he has work to do to get in the team, but he feels that's a good thing: "I am left-footed but you play wherever the manager wants you to play. And no matter what team you go to there’s always going to be competition, which is healthy.
"You don’t want to get flat-footed, you’ve got to be on your toes and be ready to challenge and if you want a successful team you need people challenging in every position to keep everyone on their toes and get the best performances out of them.”
Photo: ITFC