Town boss Kieran McKenna says young striker Tyreece Simpson will get a chance to stake a claim for a first-team place during the second half of the campaign, however, the 19-year-old, who scored 11 times when on loan in League Two with Swindon before being recalled recently, has four senior players in front of him.
Simpson was brought back to Portman Road with discussions continuing regarding a new long-term deal, while the Robins were keen for him to return to the County Ground if those terms were agreed in time. However, negotiations remain ongoing.
McKenna was asked whether ideally he’d have like Simpson to have gone back out on loan to play games in the second half of the season.
"It’s not impossible that he can play for us, so it’s not impossible that he doesn’t play first team football in the second half of the season,” he said.
"He’s been training with us a good amount this week. He’s going to be playing some minutes with the U23s at times as well in the next week or two.
"It’s a situation between the club and Tyreece’s representation and Tyreece where there are discussions going on about his long-term future and his role at the club going forward.
"Obviously, we hope those discussions can progress well. We want Tyreece to be here in the long term.
"It wasn’t possible in the end for him to go out before the end of January, so it gives us another good player in the door and gives us a chance to have a closer look at him and to work with him in training.
"And we’ll make sure he still gets some match minutes, and it’s up to him then while he’s in the door to stake a claim for minutes in the first team as well as he can.”
If he is going to break into the first team, Simpson will have to get in ahead of 12-goal top scorer Macauley Bonne, James Norwood, Joe Pigott and Kayden Jackson.
"We want to have good options in those positions, it’s very important to have options up front in this league,” McKenna said.
"They all have different qualities, all are stronger in different areas. Kayden is one who is a little bit more versatile in his position as well, can play off of wide areas as well, so that gives us that extra option. It’s good to have those options for the rest of the season.
"They all know and respect each other that there’s no guarantee for any of them to play. There are four forwards who have scored goals in this league and higher and consider themselves to be among the strongest forwards in the league.
"I think there’s a healthy competition there, there’s a mutual respect. We’re happy to have them all here.
"Obviously Joe hasn’t had so many minutes so far on the pitch but he understands the situation, we’ve been in good communication with him.
"He’s been training well and I’m confident that he’s going to get opportunities over the course of the next few months and I think there’s a good chance that he’ll go and take them as well.”