Boss Kieran McKenna says Janoi Donacien has been a joy to work with since he came to the club and has spoken about the “hybrid” system he has been employing since he took over at Town which has brought the best from the defender.
Donacien, 28, had had an up and down career at Portman Road having signed from Accrington Stanley in the summer of 2018 having had loan spells back with Stanley and at Fleetwood.
However, he became a regular fixture in the side under Paul Cook earlier in the season, signing a new contract in November, which runs to the summer of 2023 with the club having an option for a further year, and has started all 17 of McKenna’s games on the right of the back three.
"What a joy to work with, honestly. Janoi, what a joy to work with,” the Northern Irishman said when asked about Donacien at last night’s Fans’ Forum.
"I saw him in the Sunderland game for the first time, but watching the games on video I was thinking ‘He’s a good player’, so I was looking forward to seeing him.
"Obviously he’s had a varied career, has been through a lot of clubs and has been around the country, been down the coast and up the coast and back down the coast again.
"What a joy he is to work with. He’s one of the most bubbly, effervescent characters you’ll meet. He bounces around full of enthusiasm like a 19-year-old every day.
"I can only say he’s a credit in terms of how he applies himself and the energy that he brings to the group.
"I wasn’t privy to the situation before and different managers have different opinions, and rightly so, but I can say that in my time at the football club, he’s been a joy to work with and a really key part of the group on the pitch but especially off the pitch as well.”
Quizzed on whether the system in which Donacien has excelled is nailed-on or whether it’ll be something which switches, McKenna added: "I think we’ll continue to have that variation as we have done. I said from my first interview I’m not a believer in a set system, I don’t talk to players about numbers.
"Even as we work on a day-to-day basis I very rarely talk about 3-4-2-1, 4-2-3-1, we talk about roles or responsibilities, we talk about spaces on the pitch that we want to exploit and my belief is that we fit in the qualities of our players around the principles of how we want to play.
"We’ve used a lot of different variations in the 17 games that I’ve been here. Obviously part of that has been Wes Burns playing in a wing-back role with Janoi behind him all of the time in the games so far.
"But on the other hand, there are lots of moments in the game where it doesn’t look like a back five, it’s very much a hybrid system we’re using at the moment that’s about trying to get the best attributes of the players that we have.
"And as the squad develops over time, as the squad develops in the summer, we’ll look at the qualities of the players that we have and how we fit them best into a system in general for how we can get the attributes out of them that we want, and how we can adapt that game to game to come up with game plans that we think will be suitable for each opponent that we play against.
"I think the style of football is starting to become apparent and how we want to play and the principles of how we want to play.
"But there will always be subtle and little changes in the system that might not always be noticed game by game but that we work very hard on behind the scenes to make sure we’re getting the best out of our players but also so we’re quite unpredictable and difficult for the opposition to know exactly what we’re going to do on any given weekend.”