Mick McCarthy hopes fans will be lauding the performances of striker David McGoldrick for several seasons to come with the 25-year-old settled at Portman Road and beginning to fulfil the potential he showed as a youngster. The Blues frontman has scored five goals in 11 league starts this season and was named September’s Championship Player of the Month.
McCarthy says he wants McGoldrick to continue to make that sort of impact: "I hope that they’re talking about him in glowing terms for the next three or four years, and that it’s at Ipswich.”
But things haven’t always gone so smoothly for the Blues striker. He was thrust into the spotlight as a 16-year-old when Southampton paid an undisclosed fee to take him from hometown club Notts County to the Premiership in August 2004 after he had made only four senior appearances for the then-League Two side.
Having featured for the Saints as Town beat them in the final of the 2005 FA Youth Cup final, McGoldrick returned to Meadow Lane on loan and then had spells at Bournemouth and Port Vale to gain experience.
However, the 6ft 1in tall striker never made the expected impact at St Mary’s and in June 2009 he was sold to Nottingham Forest for £1 million.
In his four years at the City Ground he similarly failed to hit the heights but after a highly-successful loan spell at Coventry in League One in the first half of last season — 17 goals in 24 starts and one sub appearance — he joined the Blues initially on loan in January before signing a two-year permanent deal in July.
McGoldrick is far from the only striker to have begun to fulfil his promise later rather than sooner. Current Saints and England frontman Rickie Lambert spent most of his career playing in the lower leagues as did ex-Blue Marcus Stewart, who was 27 when he made his Premier League debut for Town.
McCarthy says he isn’t sure why players such as McGoldrick take longer to come through but believes he’s in a more stable environment at Portman Road: "Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. He was at Southampton, Nottingham Forest, always a talented, talented player.
"Sometimes with very talented youngsters it takes them until they are 24 or 25, they get married, they have kids they see a different side of it, they settle down.
"He comes here and he knows he’s valued and appreciated and loved by everybody. And he could see that right from the start when we tried to sign him. He’s thriving in that environment.”
The Blues boss believes the player’s relationship with him and assistant Terry Connor has also been a factor: "I think he can trust me, there’s no doubt about that.
"And he can trust Terry to be dead straight with them and treat them properly. I like to be able to trust them, and I can, every one of them. They’re a good squad.”