Boss Mick McCarthy is delighted that left-back Tyrone Mings picked up the September Player of the Month award and says it shows that the 21-year-old was unaffected by the transfer talk following Crystal Palace's £3 million offer towards the end of the transfer window.
"I think that’s a great award for him and I’m delighted,” McCarthy said. "And considering at the start of the month there was a big money move to a Premier League club turned down and he signed his new deal.
"That was the thing people said, ‘How’s he going to react because they turned the Premier League move down? How’s he going to react when he signs a new contract because he’ll be coming in driving a big car and wearing a flash watch and having loads of clothes and all that, it’s going to ruin him’.
"But it’s nonsense. It irks me so much that they think we are so fragile as individuals and as fickle as clubs that everything just affects us so greatly.
"I think that was brilliant that he won that, that he stuck it to everybody. They’re all watching him, he’s doing great.”
Last season McCarthy described Aaron Cresswell, who departed for West Ham in the summer, as the best left-back in the Championship, would he now say the same about Mings?
"I’m not stupid, I didn’t fight tooth and nail to keep hold of Cressy because I knew I had one who could play in his place,” he said.
"I didn’t want to lose Cressy but I also knew that if we didn’t I’d probably lose Tyrone Mings, either on loan or in his head because he’d missed his opportunity to play.
"It was the right time to give Cressy his head and let him go and play at Premier League level, and he’s doing well. And then to move one up and take the dough for him.
"I took Jonny Parr as a left-back/right-back. My conversation with him when he came was ‘I hope you can play right-back’. He didn’t really want to play right-back and I said ‘If you’re coming here then that’s what you’re going to have to do because we’ve got a young lad who is probably starting the season [on the left]’.
"And that’s just how it’s turned out, he’s playing right-back and I don’t know who is going to knock Tyrone out of that left-back slot. Unless something goes wrong and he gets suspended or something, which actually there’s every chance of as he’s on four bookings.
"But that’s the way it is, it’s a competitive game. I’ve no problem with that. He’s been outstanding, Ty.”
It’s just under two years ago that Mings impressed McCarthy in a trial game at Playford Road while with non-league Chippenham Town, the Blues boss saying at the time that he'd virtually made the decision to sign him while walking to the pitch to watch the game.
"He was really annoyed with me for taking him off after 75 minutes,” McCarthy recalled.
"‘I don’t want to come off!’. I said ‘I know you don’t, I want to sign you, that’s why you’re coming off, so you don’t get injured’.
"There are pivotal moments in people’s careers at different places. That turned out to be one for him, certainly, and maybe for me and Ipswich it’s turned out to be one as well. It was certainly a good day, that.”
As for his own Manager of the Month award, the Town boss says it’s a tribute to everyone at the club: "When I found out I was having a few days away. They phoned me up and told me.
"Of course it’s nice, but it’s a reflection not just on me but on everybody, all the staff and the players. It’s the ‘Team of the Month’ really, that’s what it is.”
Does he feel the international break came at the wrong moment for Town with the Blues on a run of seven games without a defeat?
"We’ll find out on Saturday, won’t we?” he added, also reflecting on the famed Manager of the Month curse.
"Everybody says ‘They’ve had their break, what happens if you get beat when you come back? You won the Manager of the Month, what happens if you get beat?’
"I just say that I’d sooner have had four wins and three draws beforehand and won the Manager of the Month and had a break and then get beat rather than losing three and drawing four, not winning Manager of the Month and still getting beat. It makes no odds to me.
"I just don’t see all that negative nonsense that goes off. International football, we have a break. Can’t do anything about it. Manager of the Month, I’ve got it, that was great.
"So we’ll play Blackburn and we’ll try and win. It’s just ridiculous, the spooky things that people say, it’s like Halloween sometimes, it’s bonkers!”
Photo: ITFC