Boss Mick McCarthy was delighted with home debutant Tyrone Mings, despite the Blues’ 2-1 defeat to Leicester at Portman Road on Saturday. The 20-year-old, who joined from non-league Chippenham Town last December, has started the last two matches at left-back in place of the suspended Aaron Cresswell.
"Ty’s great, he’s a really fine young fella and he’s a good player,” McCarthy said after Saturday’s match.
"He had a tough day playing against a really quick forward [Jamie Vardy] and I thought he handled it well.
"I didn’t take him off for any reason other than I thought we might get a bit more out of Hunty going forward. We were looking for a goal and, to be fair, he was feeling it, I think."
McCarthy agreed with the observation that Mings climbs even higher in the air than he did during his playing days: "I think he does, whether he heads it any better, I’m not sure about that. But he does most other things better than I did.”
Mings himself says he enjoyed his first experience of first team football at Portman Road: "I have loved every minute of it.
"To come in and play in front of my home crowd, was amazing, nothing compares to it. Obviously the result was not great but it was a good effort from everyone.
"We made a great start and controlled the game for the most part. We did everything right, we got in their faces and we started to do that again in the second half.
"But they got an early goal and the rest is history. We stopped doing what we were doing and they hit us on the break.
"We are not far behind the top teams. We are doing everything right as a team and there is not much in games. Perhaps we just need to be a bit more resilient and not give away goals as we did today.”
How has he found the step up to the first team during Cresswell’s enforced absence? "As funny as it sounds I don’t do anything really different to what I did before.
"It is just you have to do things quicker and you need to think faster. I still have a lot to learn but I like to think I can stay in the team.”
Regarding Town’s nemesis David Nugent, he added: "It is an incredible record. He is a goal threat and we kept him quiet in the first half. But goalscorers seem to be able to get goals out of nothing and he has done that.”
Cresswell will be available for next Saturday's game at Charlton having completed his two-game suspension for his red card after the home draw with Barnsley.