Giles Coke admits he would love to play a part in Town’s clash with his former club, Sheffield Wednesday, at Portman Road tomorrow.
The ex-Owls midfielder, on as a sub at Brentford last week, made his first competitive start in Tuesday’s 2-1 win over Stevenage that booked the club’s place in the second round of the Carling One Cup.
But did he do enough to earn a place in the starting line-up against a Wednesday side fresh from a 4-1 home success against another of Coke’s former clubs, Mansfield Town, in the same competition?
Coke said: "I think it went well against Stevenage. It was always going to be a tough game — the cup games are always tough. Fair play to Stevenage, they did make it tough for us but I think we were definitely the better team overall and deserved to win.
"Did I do enough to start against Wednesday? You’d have to ask the manager that. All I can do is give 100 per cent when I play and hopefully it’s enough for the manager to pick me.”
Even if he has to bide his time to force his way into Mick McCarthy’s first-choice XI, Coke would love to play his part in Town progressing in the Capital One Cup, adding: "I love playing football so any game that I play helps because it gives the manager another chance to look at me and consider me for a league game.”
Coke had no idea what the future held when he was released after five years at Hillsborough but he knew from the first day he arrived on trial at Town that he wanted to stay put.
He had been training at Blackburn when McCarthy extended an invitation to join up on a trial basis and Coke admitted: "Right from the very start I liked it here. When you look around the place and you see what the club’s like it’s brilliant and the boys are brilliant as well.
"The boys have really made me feel at home. They’re a good bunch of boys and there’s a real togetherness among them, which can go a long way. I really couldn’t be happier with the way things have worked out.
"When you are on a free you literally don’t know what is next. You’ve got to consider everything. You just never know what is going to happen in football. If you didn’t have other options you would have to consider things like dropping down a division or maybe even moving abroad.”
There were reports as long as 10 years ago that Town were showing an interest in Coke, who at the time was beginning to make a name for himself at Mansfield.
But he added: "I genuinely didn’t know anything about that back then. It’s a long time ago and I don’t know anything about speculation like that.”