Boss Mick McCarthy says new loan signing Luke Varney has been a thorn in his side with his various clubs over the years and scored one of the best goals the Blues manager has seen against his Wolves side at Bloomfield Road in the Premier League back in November 2010.
"All over the place at lots of clubs he seems to have played against us and has always made an impact and always been a threat,” McCarthy said.
"He scored one of the best goals I’ve ever seen for Blackpool against us. He chested it down, just over the halfway line and volleyed it into the top corner.
"Somebody said to me did we think that Marcus Hahnemann should have saved it. If there had been two Marcus Hahnemanns they wouldn’t have saved it!
"He’s been a bit of a thorn in my side from time to time has Luke Varney. He’s always been one who I have respected and admired and appreciated the way he’s gone about his job.
"He’s a wholehearted player and he certainly puts his shift in, every week. Anybody who knows me by now will know that I like players like that.”
He added: "He’s had good moves, he went to Leeds and he’s one of those who whenever he’s gone to a new club he’s made an impact and scored goals, so let’s hope that’s the case here.”
McCarthy confirmed that although the move is an initial one-month loan, the 32-year-old can stay to the very end of the season: "It works out [that he can stay to the play-off final]. I’m not going to sit here and try to explain it.
"There are more than 93 days to the final but we can have a break in it. We’ve taken it on a month’s initial loan but we’ve an agreement and it’ll cover that.”
The Town boss feels Varney’s opportunities at Blackburn, where he has made only one start - in the Capital One Cup in August - and 13 sub appearances this season, have been hampered by the form of other strikers.
"The same as the situation could be said here,” he added. "Didz and Murph have been playing in all the game and others come and then leave to go elsewhere.
"With Jordan Rhodes and Rudy Gestede they’ve had two fairly prolific strikers and I think they had an embargo so whether that had anything to do with it in terms of getting him loaned out, I don’t know.
"I think Gary Bowyer likes Luke Varney but I think he’s just surplus to requirements. It doesn’t always work that there’s something wrong with them, he’s just got someone else in the team.”
He says he’s been impressed with Varney since speaking to him: "You watch people play for years, playing against your teams or you just watch them and you tend to pick out the character in them, what they’re like, what you think they’d be like and it’s always nice when you get it right.
"It’s such a disappointment if you’ve got it wrong when you meet them. But I would say I got right with him, he seems a really good character, a nice guy, but he’s a grafter, he’ll fit in.”
McCarthy hopes Varney will make the same impact that Noel Hunt did when he came in, the now-injured Irishman having been similarly out-of-favour at his previous club.
"They’re selfless in giving themselves to the team, to the cause. If I ask them to play wide right, wide left, up front they’ll just go and do it. I think he’s another one of them,” he continued.
"I hope he has the same impact as Noel did from not playing, sitting on the bench, or not sitting on the bench, as the case may be.
"Players want to play football and it’s almost as if you let them out on the pitch and they go mad for a while, run around and you get the best out of them. They want to play.”
Photo: ITFC