Blues boss Mick McCarthy says he’s been delighted with the attitude shown by on-loan Manchester City winger Bersant Celina, who is still to make his first Championship start for Town.
The 20-year-old Kosovo international’s only starts so far were in the Carabao Cup ties at Luton and Crystal Palace with his first Championship appearance having come as a sub in the 2-0 defeat to Fulham in the final game before the international break.
Since then Celina, whose first few of months at Portman Road have been hampered by illness, has made two U23s appearances and scored a stunning freekick in Saturday’s 2-1 win at Sheffield Wednesday.
"He scored an even better one this morning in training with the outside of his foot,” McCarthy said. "He’s certainly got something.
"He’s been here for 12 weeks but he’s been ill for about seven of them, so he’s been playing catch-up. But he played well in the U23s games and he’s looking very sharp.
U23 | @BersantCelina scored a screamer, and Ben Folami grabbed a late winner as Town's U23s beat @swfc 2-1 on Saturday#itfc pic.twitter.com/WrbVknC4dD– Ipswich Town FC (@Official_ITFC) September 5, 2017
"I guess if you’re coming from Manchester City you ought to have a bit of something, and he has.
"He does things that you’re just never going to coach. And he does things as well that you wouldn’t coach!
"If we get him in the final third with the ball and he can do his bit there, then he’s a real threat, there’s no doubt about that.
"We saw that with the game against Luton and we’ve seen it in training. He was poorly and then we’d won five games on the bounce, he’s got to wait his time and get in and when he gets in he’s got to make sure he plays well and stays in.”
In addition to his more obvious skills and flair, McCarthy says Celina has shown a willingness to dig in and do his fair share of the other side of the game.
"He’s doing that, to be fair,” McCarthy said. "I’ve no problem with that at all. He’s had a really good attitude towards it, I’ve been delighted with him.
"His attitude’s been great, you’re questioning like there’s some undercurrent about something being wrong with his attitude, there’s that little undercurrent. Well, there is about being a Mick McCarthy player.
"Mick McCarthy likes the best players, Mick McCarthy likes players who play really good football and are competitive.
"And, depending on where I am and what we spend and what we get, I’ll take the competitive side of it always if we having to have a scrap about it because I know what I’m going to get out of players.
"And he’s got a bit of both, his attitude’s been great. I’ve been really delighted with that, he’s tracked back in every time he’s played, I thought he did it at Luton really well, I thought he did it at Crystal Palace really well.
"My criticism at Crystal Palace was, ‘Don’t give the bloody ball away’ because when we’re breaking up the field I want us to have, and I bang on about this with the lads, if we’re breaking we want to end up with a goal, a penalty, a freekick, a corner, a throw-in and then sixth it might be in the keeper’s hands, seventh might be that they nick it off you and break up the pitch.
"Any of those five prior to them doing that. That wasn’t happening, we were breaking on them and they were having a shot at our goal.
"We’ve explained that to him, but his attitude has been great and if we can get him on the pitch and he does all of it, then we may have a player.
"And likewise with Danny Rowe, he conducted himself brilliantly [in the U23s], all of them did. Tom Adeyemi, they were all excellent in terms of their attitude.
"Must be nice for Nashy [Gerard Nash], our U23s coach to win back to back games, it doesn’t happen too often.”