Town youngster Idris El Mizouni is not afraid of the considerable challenge he faces in dislodging an experienced player if he is to become a regular choice for Town.
If the midfielder, 21, is to establish himself in boss Paul Cook’s starting line-up he knows he must oust one of several colleagues who have hundreds of league appearance behind them in their careers.
El Mizouni is set to make his fourth senior start this season in tonight’s Papa John’s Trophy clash at Gillingham but can he really envisage replacing the likes of Tom Carroll, Lee Evans or new club captain Sam Morsy to hold down a regular first-team berth in the middle of the park.
"It’s a tall order,” he said. "They are all very good players and they have a lot of experience in the game. I am actually trying to learn from them because they are three different players and there are parts of their game that I could bring to my own.
"I just need to keep working hard and then, when I am picked to play, I must make sure that I show the manager what I can contribute in terms of playing in League One against any of the other teams at that level.
"If I can do that it would be great for me and even if I do it in a cup game, like the one at Gillingham, it will be a step in the right direction.”
Asked to describe himself as a player, El Mizouni replied: "I think I am a good technical player with good energy. I’d say I am a box-to-box midfielder and I enjoy getting up and down the pitch. I can tackle and I’m also good on the ball.”
He has also shown himself to be adept at set-pieces, with Town fans appreciating a free-kick he scored for Cambridge two seasons ago. It came in only his fifth game for them, to open the scoring in their 2-0 win at Scunthorpe in February 2020 before the lockdown due to the coronavirus pandemic, although in his case the loan was brought to a premature end in early March after a knee ligament injury that ruled him out for the remainder of the season.
"That free-kick goal was a great moment for me,” he recalled. "I have always tried to practice free-kicks with the U18s and the U23s but I wouldn’t be looking to take on the job for the first team unless I get to the stage where I am playing regularly.
"I would definitely be up for it then. There are other players like Lee, Bersant Celina and Scott Fraser who are good at that part of the game, but we’ll see what happens.”
A fit-again El Mizouni returned on a season-long loan to Cambridge just over a year ago and after briefly returning to Portman Road he was on his travels again, this time to Grimsby, but again he missed out on several games because of a hamstring injury.
He said: "My loan spells did not only help me as a player, they also benefited me mentally and in terms of my character. I had been at Ipswich from a young age so when I went on loan I was out of my comfort zone.
"I knew everyone at Ipswich because I had come through the academy but when I joined another club it couldn’t have been more different.
"I knew no one, I was a stranger in a new area and it was up to me to make it work. In my first spell at Cambridge it worked well in training and I was playing regularly.
"But then I got injured, plus the lockdown came. I went back to Cambridge for another loan spell but it didn’t work out as well as I wanted it to.
"I was more of a substitute coming off the bench, rather than a regular starter, and that was why I chose to come back to Ipswich in January this year.
"After a few weeks I went to Grimsby because I knew Paul Hurst and Chris Doig from their time at Ipswich. That loan was working well on the pitch but unfortunately I picked up a hamstring injury that ended my season. That was a situation that helped my mental strength, though.”
It may have represented extra competition for first team places but El Mizouni was delighted when Town agreed a season-long loan deal with French club Dijon that saw Bersant Celina return to Portman Road, where he was on loan from Manchester City in the 2017/18 season, scoring seven times in 35 league appearances, 23 of them from the start with a further 12 from the bench.
He said: "I remembered Bersant but I was surprised that he remembered me. We had a couple of chats the last time he was here and we had a laugh about the fact that back then I couldn’t really speak much English. But it’s different now. That was what he noticed about me, that my English had improved so much.
"We can understand each other a lot better. His French isn’t that great — he was only there for about a year and to be fair it is quite a hard language to learn — so we stick to English. It’s good to have him back here because he is a good guy and a quality player.”