Town boss Mick McCarthy says new winger Tommy Oar made an immediate impression on his first day training at Playford Road yesterday. The 23-year-old has been away with the Australia squad since signing a two-year deal with an option for a third season prior to the two-week international break.
"He trained this morning for the first time and the first touch of the ball he got it and he went past a defender and put a cross in,” McCarthy said.
"That’s what he’s good at. It’s all right being good at it, it’s what he wants to do and that’s great.
"It showed everybody, all the staff and players on the pitch what he’s good at and he created a chance for his team.
"I’m really looking forward to him spending time with us, training with us and getting playing because that’s just the first viewing.”
Oar was McCarthy’s final addition of the summer transfer window with Polish defender Piotr Malarczyk having joined from Korona Kielce a day earlier.
The 24-year-old, who was close to receiving a first call into the Poland squad for their Euro 2016 qualifiers after a number of central defensive withdrawals, made his Town debut as a second-half sub in the 3-2 home defeat to Brighton.
"That was a real baptism of fire against a good team, we were 2-0 down,” the Town boss said. "Had we scored the winner we’d have all been talking about the fact that he and whoever else came on turned the game around and we'd won it.
"But instead it must have been 50 per cent faster than he’s been used to, I think he said that before he went on, and he found out that it was.
"I’ve no worries about him, he’s trained with us now and he hasn’t been travelling for three days prior to the game and getting in at midnight on Friday night. His preparation will be better. He’ll be a solid defender for us.”
Both Oar and Malarczyk are players McCarthy has checked out using the club’s Wyscout software: "The system we have we’ve had it every since I came in, it’s just whether the players are there and available and we can get hold of them.
"We knew Tommy Oar was coming out of contract [at FC Utrecht], we’d spoken to him. Every time somebody texts me about somebody, an agent maybe, I have a look, I get [club performance analyst] Jordan [Miles] to have a look on the system to find out about them to see whether it’s worth following up.
"That was the case with Piotr Malarczyk. We get that down, we have a look at him. Mark Kennedy went over and watched him live, saw enough of him, so that was worthwhile doing, definitely.
"Tommy Oar, similar. We knew he was coming out of contract, he was a free, suits me fine that. I had two or three looks at him and saw plenty on the system.
"Jonas Knudsen the same. Jordan looking, researching on the Internet, looking at players. We were looking for a left-back and we found one that we could get.
"We watched him, TC went and watched him twice live. We’d seen him on the system. It’s not like we’ve got a scout in Poland, one in Holland, one in Germany, one in Australia or wherever. We just haven’t, it’s doing our due diligence on them, following them up.”
He added: "They are the right ones. We haven’t got this extensive system where we were looking at everybody abroad, it’s about being selective.
"We knew we could get Jonas Knudsen at the right money having sold a left-back for £8 million. We knew we could get one for really good money, and a good one.
"The same with Piotr Malarczyk, virtually a free. Tommy Oar a free, so it’s being selective. You wouldn’t believe the amount of people we get sent in to us. But, like I say, we’ve done our due diligence and it’s worked.”
McCarthy once again did his summer business at a relatively low cost in terms of fees - Knudsen is understood to have cost around £350,000 and Malarczyk circa £8,500 with the rest frees - while large sums were spent elsewhere, the Championship’s overall spending having topped £100 million.
"I saw that Matej Vydra’s gone to Reading for what’s reported to be a £2 million loan fee, whether that’s true or not I’ve no idea, but generally there’s an element of truth in it,” McCarthy said.
"Sheffield Wednesday were bidding, what was it, £10 million for Ross McCormack? Fulham have bought Richard Stearman from Wolves for £2 million. They’re just things off the top of my head.
"I looked around at it and thought ‘Wow, there is a fair old chunk of money being spent’, but then there’s a huge amount of money at stake to be in the Premier League next season.
"That doesn’t faze me at all. I think we’ve got as good a squad as any of them in the league and I’m confident with our players.”
While Championship Financial Fair Play limits have increased this season, there are suspicions that some clubs may be ignoring the rules.
"I’ve had them explained to me a number times and I’m still not sure I know any more about it,” McCarthy admitted. "I’m waiting to see who gets fined, who gets sanctioned, apparently certain clubs [Nottingham Forest and Blackburn] can only sign a player and pay him 12 grand a week. That’s a real hardship, isn’t it?
"They can’t spend [money on fees], they have to get one in and one out maybe, but there were supposed to be huge fines for teams that broke it. I haven’t seen that yet and it remains to be seen whether that happens.
"But all that aside, I’m just interested to see what happens because there was a lot of noise being made about it, but it doesn’t bother me. I’ve got my squad, I’m happy with my squad and the business that we’ve done. We’ve signed some really good players.”