Boss Mick McCarthy believes Tyrone Mings is now the best left-back in the Championship having taken over from Aaron Cresswell - who the Town manager felt was the best left-back in the division last year - following his departure for West Ham in the summer.
Cresswell has also enjoyed an excellent first season with the Hammers, with Chelsea and Manchester City both reportedly showing interest, a potential move which would net the Blues cash via a sell-on clause.
"I think he’s been outstanding,” McCarthy said of Mings. "I think he’s had a brilliant first full season.
"We could see that when he was here and the deputy to Cressy, who has gone on and had a brilliant season at West Ham in the Premier League.
"We could all see he was a good player, but we’d got the top left-back in the league. I think we’ve now got the top left-back in the league again. I think anybody would be hard pushed to dispute that.”
He has no doubt that the £10,000 recruit from Chippenham will go on to play in the top flight.
"He’ll play in the Premier League, I’m hoping it’s going to be with Ipswich, with me,” McCarthy added.
"If that’s not the case, if we don’t get into the play-offs first and foremost, and if we do and we don’t get promoted through the play-offs, I’ll think there’ll be interest in him, of course there will.
"But he’s contracted to us and we’ve got no desire to sell our best players because we’ve got some good young players coming through.”
Regarding Cresswell, McCarthy said he wasn’t sure whether there was a sell-on including in last summer’s "very good deal”, although a Town spokesman later confirmed to TWTD that there is a clause of an undisclosed percentage.
The Hammers paid an initial £3.75 million for the 25-year-old with the fee potentially rising to £7 million depending on top-ups likely to relate to appearances and probably international caps.
Sell-on clauses in some previous Town deals have seen the Blues receive 10 per cent of the profit when players have made further moves. West Ham have reportedly put a £25 million price tag on Cresswell’s head.
Tranmere would be due 20 per cent of anything Town receive as a result of a future sale having had a sell-on clause in the 2011 tribunal-set deal when Cresswell joined the Blues.