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McGreal Confirms Norwood Back Training With First Team Ahead of Wigan Trip - Ipswich Town News

Interim boss John McGreal says striker James Norwood has trained with the first team this morning and is available for selection ahead of Saturday’s trip to Wigan Athletic.

Norwood has been training with the U23s - and has scored in each of the last two games - and has been transfer-listed ahead of the January window.

The 31-year-old intimated in a tweet that that decision wasn’t made by former boss Paul Cook, however, speaking to TWTD on Monday, CEO Mark Ashton said that whether Norwood was selected was down to the manager.

Asked whether he’s able to play Norwood at his lunchtime press conference, McGreal said: "Of course I can. He’s come back in, he’s trained with the guys this morning, he’s been excellent, he needed minutes in the U23s.

"He’s a personality around the club at the moment, so he’s there, if we need him, to be called upon.”

The Liverpudlian says he knows Norwood well from facing him in League Two: "I know a lot about Nors. When I was at Colchester he scored a couple of goals against me at Colchester, so I know a lot of his strengths, I know a lot of his personality as well.

"We’ve passed each other over the years, not that I’ve got a relationship with Nors but I know of him and it just seems a professional that tries hard on the pitch.

"That’s all know of, he tries hard on the pitch, on the training pitch, I don’t know him off the pitch as such. I can only judge what he does on the pitch and the training pitch.”

Norwood is a big character and McGreal said character is something the team needs to show following the disappointing defeat at Charlton on Tuesday.

"It is,” he said. "Each and every individual’s got a personality. It’s a different personality to the next man.

" I actually said to the guys the other night, ‘You’ve all been on the floor before, to get yourselves back up again, to play for Ipswich, you must have done something right or you must have dragged something from within yourself to be be a better player, so you know what? You’ve got to do that again. And it’s easy because you know you’ve done it before, so let’s go again’.

"It’s all positivity if we can, getting into the boys and bringing that inner belief again, and it will come. You don’t turn into a bad player overnight, so the more we can get into them the more we can train, the better they’ll become.”


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