Town boss Mick McCarthy believes striker David McGoldrick is as good as anyone in the Championship.
The 29-year-old Republic of Ireland international has made an impressive start to the season, having scored four times, including the strike which sealed Saturday’s 2-0 home win against Bolton Wanderers.
"He’s one of the best,” McCarthy said. "I bang on at him all the time. When he’s in his pomp, when he’s doing all the dirty stuff, he’s been a really good example to everybody else in how he does it.
"We know that with some of the technically-gifted players, sometimes when it’s just not happening for them they’re not as good as they probably should be or could be.
"But those are the times when you just keep your chin, chest out, you run around, you jump into people, you make tackles, you get back, you defend at corners and you do all the dirty stuff.
"And it’s an amazing fact of life that your form comes back by doing that. And I thought he did that on Saturday. He was right in his pomp, he was very, very good.”
Does is sometimes guilty of working too hard in deeper areas when he’d prefer him to be further forward? "You’d love me to say that, wouldn’t you? There’s no such thing as doing too much of the dirty stuff.
"I know you’d all like it to be fancy football and play wonderful, free-flowing and everything’s got sparkles on.
"I didn’t ever hear anybody say that about Steven Gerrard or Alan Shearer or Roy Keane, the best players that did all the dirty stuff and did the forward stuff as well.
"I’m not having that in any shape or form. I think the best players work hard. Messi works his socks off, he doesn’t laze around and not do anything.
"I’m not suggesting Didzy does, but there’ll be times when Messi’s not having a great time.
"I remember watching him in the World Cup in South Africa and I was doing the co-commentary and they were playing against Greece and it was [Sokratis] Papastathopoulos that was marking him and every time the ball went to him I had to say his name. I ended up saying the big number four or something.
"But they all work hard. The best players work hard and he does. I’d never criticise his work-rate. Sometimes he gets disappointed it’s just not going right but when he’s doing it right, he’s terrific, he’s a good player.”
Town turned down a £7 million-plus offer from Leicester City for McGoldrick in August 2014 but since then, although there have been one or two rumours of interest, no one has made a firm offer.
"He’s had some injuries, hasn’t he?” McCarthy reflected. "That takes a while to recover from as well. And unfortunately for him and for me and for the club, that’s been the case.
"But in terms of other people being in for him, I was surprised this window, actually. I’d been not worried about it [as such], but I was delighted with it.
"I was delighted because I don’t know what other people see in him or what they don’t see or whether they thought we’d be playing hard ball and ask for too much money, because we would. Why would we want to lose him?”
McCarthy believes that having added Joe Garner and Martyn Waghorn to his squad alongside McGoldrick and Freddie Sears in the summer, he now has the best quartet of his time at Town.
"Looking at the goals they’re scoring at the minute then I would say that’s the proof of the pudding really,” he added.
"But in what they do and how they play I would say I have. There’s a variation of players and certainly stronger than last season.”
The form of McGoldrick and Garner has meant Waghorn, who has scored four goals since joining the Blues, is yet to feature as a central striker, the role he was brought from Rangers to play. However, McCarthy hints that the 27-year-old could get his chance in the next few games.
"I’ve spoken to him and told him I want to see him through the middle,” he said. "But I think he’ll understand when Joe Garner and Didzy play as well as they did last week, same with Freddie Sears, they’ve just got to bide their time.
"But we are playing Saturday-Tuesday-Saturday for the first time in a while and we’ll see how they all are.”