Town have confirmed the signing of QPR striker Macauley Bonne on a season-long loan, TWTD having revealed that the Blues were set to add the 25-year-old to their squad this morning.
Rumours that Bonne, who was a schoolboy in the Town academy, was interesting the Blues first surfaced in mid-May when there were claims that the Ipswich-born Zimbabwe international would be part of a swap deal with Andre Dozzell.
This was dismissed at the time - Dozzell eventually made the move for a £1 million fee - and earlier this month reports in West London indicated that Rangers wanted to keep hold of Bonne despite a first season at Loftus Road in which he scored only three goals in nine starts and 26 sub appearances.
However, Town remained keen and QPR were more open to the move than had been suggested, although on loan rather than permanently.
"It’s been 12 years since I left here when I was a kid and it’s great to be back,” Bonne told iFollow Ipswich.
"I’m a Town fan and as soon as I heard about the opportunity to come back here and play for the first-team, the team that I essentially love, it was a no-brainer. I can’t wait to get going now.
"Paul Cook is a character. He’s been dying to get it over the line. He seems like a guy I really want to work with and do well under, and it seems like he wants the same for me so that’s all I can ask for.”
Town CEO Mark Ashton added: "We are obviously delighted to get the deal done and welcome Macauley back to Ipswich Town.
"He has Championship experience and we wish him every success at this football club.
"It’s been a busy 24 hours and we are moving forward with one or two other additions as well that we hope to get over the line as soon as possible.”
Having been released by the Blues at U14 level, the one-time Chantry High School pupil moved on to Norwich’s youth set-up and then Colchester where he broke into their first team early in the 2013/14 season.
While at the JobServe Community Stadium he spent time on loan at Lincoln City and Woking and in his four years with the U’s netted 15 times in 25 starts and 59 sub appearances.
Bonne moved to Leyton Orient in July 2017 where he enjoyed an impressive two years scoring 45 goals in 89 league starts and one sub appearance.
That form attracted then-Championship Charlton Athletic, who he joined in June 2019 and where he found the net 12 times in 32 starts and eight sub appearances before moving to QPR for a reported £2 million in October last year, signing a deal which runs to the summer of 2023.
In their post-season assessment of Bonne our sister QPR site Loft For Words wrote: "It certainly couldn’t have started much better for him following a summer move from Charlton.
"A nicely-taken goal on debut off the bench in the last minute at Sheffield Wednesday secured a hard-fought point from a dire game, and a similar effort off another centre-back assist then brought home a deserved victory from a much more dominant display at Derby.
"There were a couple of really bad misses which meant we had to settle for a 0-0 at Bournemouth when the performance merited a win but, really, it was strange how quickly the confidence seemed to drain out of him - Charlie Austin fairly candidly saying Bonne had been the first one on the phone to him after he joined the club saying he didn’t really feel like it was working out for him and wanting to know what he could do to kick start the spell.
"Bonne and [Lyndon] Dykes had missed a whole catalogue of chances to knock Fulham out of the FA Cup just before that and although he subsequently scored a beautifully-taken last-minute sealer at Luton that the heart just longed to be behind the goal for, he was then back on sitter duty away at Watford where Lee Wallace put one on a plate for him from three yards which he rather fell over.”
They add that the Blues' new loan signing has a tendency to stray offside but that he gives defenders a tough time: "The work-rate is there, you can’t fault him on that. He’s nasty, watch him, absolutely horrible to the centre-backs, which I like.
"The three goals he scored for us, the 11 he got for Charlton at this level last season, and 47 in 91 appearances for Leyton Orient suggest there is something there — although Addicks fans did warn us it needs three or four good chances for him to score once.”
Bonne becomes the Blues' fourth signing of the summer and their second in two days with Rekeem Harper having joined on a three-year deal from West Brom yesterday.