Preston North End boss Alex Neil hopes Josh Harrop will play games, score goals and pick up assists during his loan spell with Town and return to Deepdale ready for increased involvement with the Lilywhites.
Harrop joined the Blues on loan for the rest of the season earlier in the week and looks set to make his Town debut at some stage in tomorrow’s home game against Peterborough.
The 25-year-old has had limited opportunities at Preston this season having made only four starts, one in the Championship, and four appearances from the bench, scoring once.
"Josh is a confidence player, he's one of those lads that - even if he's not maybe had a good game - wants to play the next one," Neil told Lancashire Live.
"I'm really hopeful for him and for us that he goes and has a really successful loan at Ipswich, does well, scores goals and assists.
"If Josh goes down there, plays 20-odd games, scores six or seven goals and makes five assists for example, we'll be thinking 'happy days, great, he's ready, let's bring him back and see if he deserves to play’.
"There's no question that Josh is a talented lad, I just think he needs a run of minutes to make his errors, to learn, improve and be a top player somewhere.
"Josh has been here for three and a half seasons and is sitting at about 27 or 28 starts; that's not enough for a lad of his age.
"I think Josh needs to go and play and be the guy that's relied on to try and effect the game.
"And if you look at the guys we've had here that have played the majority of games - the likes of Pearo [Ben Pearson], Alan [Browne], DJ [Daniel Johnson], Callum Robinson - a lot of them went to League One to initially to learn their trade and get those 50 or 60 games.
"Unfortunately here, in the position he wants to play in, we've had guys like DJ, Alan, Brad [Potts], Scott Sinclair and those guys have been really productive for us so it's been difficult for him to get in the team.
"If you look at Scott, in terms of the role I had for Josh this year, Scott has scored eight goals this year and without those goals it would've been tough."