Manager Mick McCarthy has been delighted with the way midfielder Jay Tabb has started the season. The 30-year-old was largely out of favour last season but broke into the XI in pre-season and has been one of the standout performers in the opening few weeks of this campaign.
"Tabby’s great, he’s just a top, top pro,” McCarthy said. "He hadn’t played at the end of last season, he kept his chin up, came back and didn’t know what was going to be happening at the start of this season.
"But I said to him, ‘Look, you come back and if you’re the best player, you play’. And that’s what’s turned out.
"He just gets on with it. He’s a proper player, a proper bloke, I have a lot of time for him.”
With Cameron Stewart and Stephen Hunt over their longer-term injuries and Darren Ambrose joining the squad last week, there is plenty of competition for the left midfield role.
"And Alex Henshall,” reminded McCarthy. "It’s great. It’s nice to have that kind of a problem when you’ve got players who are not involved.
"Tabby knows the job. He’s not a flying winger, he’s not going to drop his shoulder and go past people but he can work himself into those positions and he does such a great job helping his full-back. He just knows the job.
"He has got competition, but they’re going have to play well to knock him out of the side.”
The Town boss says Paul Anderson does a similar job on the right-hand side: "They know when to tuck in and when to get back out and do the job, whether they’re playing on the inside or the outside.
"That’s the role of a wide player. It makes me laugh the suggestion that wingers should stay up the pitch and just take people on. They don’t, they have to get back and have to track because modern-day full-backs are rampaging forward.
"The last thing you want to be doing is chasing Tyrone Mings and Jonny Parr or Scott Malone against Millwall, but that’s what our wingers have to do, and those two do it particularly well.”