Blues legend Jason Dozzell says Town is the best place for his son Andre to be at this stage of his career, despite reported interest from Arsenal and one of his other former clubs, Tottenham.
The two North London clubs were linked with the 16-year-old over the weekend, while numerous other Premier League clubs are understood to have been keeping tabs on the academy product, also a midfielder.
"Someone told me about it and then I saw it on TWTD,” Jason, now a coach at the Town academy, told TWTD. "I don’t know anything about it.
"Experience tells me that paper talk is paper talk. There’s a big difference between someone having interest and putting a cheque on the table. As far as I’m concerned it’s nothing.”
He added: "Ipswich is the best place for him. He’s obviously been on the bench, he’s close, the manager likes him. His pathway at the moment is Ipswich Town.
"If he goes to a big club his pathway would be blocked, there will be a lot more players, a lot more better players, I would imagine.
"All you can ask for is to be close to the first team. I thought it would happen next year but it’s happening this year.
"I’m happy with the way he’s progressing, I’m happy with how they’re looking after him as a parent and that’s all you can ask for really.”
Andre, who turns 17 on May 2nd when a previously agreed two-year pro deal is set to kick in, was named amongst the subs for the home game with Nottingham Forest earlier this month, having been handed squad number 41 the previous week when he travelled with the senior squad for the first time ahead of the match at Huddersfield.
Jason with Frans Thijssen at Friday's Ex-Players' Dinner
His father, who is famously still the youngest scorer in the top flight, having netted on his Blues debut after coming off the bench in a 3-1 home victory over Coventry in 1984 aged only 16 years and 57 days, was delighted to see his son break into the matchday 18 for the first time.
"I was obviously proud when he was named on the bench, the same age as me when I made my debut,” he added. "Very, very strange but, as I say, he’s quite close at the moment, so why would he move? He’s only 16. I think his education will start here.”
Andre is currently away with the England U17 squad, along with academy team-mate Ben Morris, a prolific striker with the U18s this season, ahead of the Euro 2016 elite qualifying mini-tournament they are hosting later this week.
"He’s got three games, Turkey on Thursday, Finland on Saturday and Ukraine on the following Tuesday and I’ll be going up to them. Hopefully he’ll get a lot of minutes.”
Andre has previously won nine caps at U17 level and has recently worn the captain's armband, however, Jason says he may not be the skipper in these games.
He added: "The Chelsea and the Arsenal boys weren’t there for the last tournament and one of those boys is normally the captain so we’ll have to see what happens because they’re all there this time.”