Town boss Mick McCarthy says versatile players such as Paul Digby, who signed on a permanent basis earlier today, could be very important in the season ahead with EFL clubs no longer able to sign players on emergency loans.
"Diggers played well when he came on the loan from Barnsley. He did really well, certainly in his starting debut at Middlesbrough when we drew 0-0. He was excellent in the game,” McCarthy said at his traditional start of pre-season press conference this morning.
"He brings a bit of versatility to it. He’s quite clearly fit, he’s come back and won the bleep tests against Luke Hyam, which I don’t think anybody’s ever done before.
"He brings versatility in terms of where he can play, he’s played in midfield and at full-back, but he excelled at centre-back when he played.
"And next year when we’ve got no emergency loans we’ll need that versatility and if we do have problems somebody who can play in a number of positions is going to be really important to us.
"He’s one that was a bright young England prospect — maybe today that’s not worthwhile saying but is should be mentioned — and he had some injuries and his career stalled a little bit. I’m hoping he’ll resurrect it with us.”
He added: "It seems like we’ve got plenty of defenders, although we’ve lived on five generally for the last two or three seasons with Chambo, Christophe, Tommy, Tyrone Mings or Jonas and before him Cresser, and probably one or two others that have just flitted in and out.
"So we’ve got two solid back fours and we’ll need that because we’ve got no emergency loans.”