Boss Mick McCarthy believes striker Leon Best, who will make his first Blues start in this evening’s game against his former loan club Brighton, can be the focal point of the Town attack with his performance having been one of the brighter aspects of Saturday’s 1-0 defeat at Leeds United.
Best, 30, came on as a 25th minute sub after Brett Pitman suffered knee and ankle injuries and will start in place of the Channel Islander this evening.
"I thought he did well, Leon,” McCarthy said. "I’m pleased with him and he’s just getting into it.
"He didn’t have his full pre-season, so we’ve been getting gradually more work into him. I thought in his 10-minute cameo against Aston Villa he and Luke Varney were excellent together, and I thought on Saturday he was one of the bright spots, I thought he did well.”
Is the former Republic of Ireland and Newcastle United frontman ready to play a full 90 minutes? "We’ll soon find out, won’t we?”
Departed striker Daryl Murphy has been a key member of the Town team for the last few seasons and McCarthy admits that the Blues are currently in a period of adjustment playing without the Irishman, who joined Newcastle for £3 million a couple of days before the transfer window closed.
"Yes, but we’ve got to do it,” he said. "If I was to sit here and bemoan that every five minutes that’s not going to do me any favours.
"I thought Pits was doing it particularly well, actually. I thought he played exceptionally well.
"And I thought the two lads who came on against Villa were a real handful together. Unfortunately two of those have taken out of my armoury for now.
"Rather than what we had I prefer to look at what we have. I played with Niall Quinn you know, he was a good player but he’s not around for me now either.
"I prefer to look at the ones who are in the team and I thought Besty played well on Saturday for somebody who has just come into the club and I think he can be that focal point of the attack for us.”
He says there is much more to come from his side up front in particular with plenty of players currently out injured or still finding their feet having joined towards the end of the transfer window.
"A lot more to come, I hope,” McCarthy said. "Certainly when we get attacking options back, Luke Varney, Pits and Jonny Williams.
"Jonny Williams is not really fit to start, although he’s training with us. Didzy’s to come back. I think that will give us far more options up front.”
McCarthy has also been pleased with Tom Lawrence since he joined the club on loan from Leicester.
"I think he’s done well,” he added. "Saturday, I don’t think any of us did as well as we had done in the past games, but prior to that he had done well. And Wardy had missed training all week, so I don’t think that helped him at all.”
Reflecting on the defeat at Leeds, McCarthy said: "We didn’t create enough chances, I didn’t think we were good enough with the ball.
"I’ve watched the game again and in the first 35 minutes we were equal to Leeds. They scored a good goal and they had the better of it.
"I thought in the second half we started well, there wasn’t a lot in it and then it just drifted away from us and we didn’t work their keeper hardly ever. And that’s something we need to improve on.”
He added: "We can be better, whether it’s on our deliveries from freekicks or corners or our play around the box, we can be a bit more clinical with that, a bit more considered.
"Just work the opposition a bit more and just have a bit more play in their half, as opposed to it becoming just an end-to-end game, which it did on Saturday. It became end-to-end and the home team became the best side.”
With time on the training field limited by games coming thick and fast, McCarthy says much of the work on improving those areas is done elsewhere.
"Lots of it can be done and has to be done in the analysis room, showing people and watching it, picking the bones out of it generally,” the Town boss continued.
"And that has to be done because we play Saturday-Tuesday-Saturday and it’s hard to get work into them on the training ground.”
Regarding the current injury problems - "We had 17 out training this morning” - does he see it as a crisis?
"It’s getting there, that’s for sure, we don’t have such a big squad that we can carry seven definite first-teamers injured, who are not available to play and Adam McDonnell and Giles Coke have been out of it for a while.”
In similar circumstances in previous seasons McCarthy might have looked to the emergency loan market but FIFA removed that provision ahead of the start of this season.
"It is a test, a challenge and one we’ve got to respond to,” he continued. "The players who play will have to be at the optimum tomorrow, they’ll all have to play well.
"We’ll have to play well individually and as a team because Brighton are a very good side. But you do find out about people, myself and everybody else, when there’s a bit of a crisis going on and see how we react.”