Janoi Donacien has spoken of his “magical journey” as a Town player, the next stage of which takes him and his teammates to Shrewsbury on Saturday when they will be looking to reinforce their position at the top of League One.
With the squad list showing him right at the bottom, shirt number 44, he might look like something of an outsider, but nothing could be further from the truth. The St Lucia-born player is in his fifth season as a Blue and has become a permanent fixture under current boss Kieran McKenna.
The days when his Portman Road future looked bleak — he was loaned back to his former club in January 2019 and then to Fleetwood two years later — are firmly behind him and instead of being seemingly set for pastures new last year he now appears to be one of the first names on manager McKenna’s team sheet.
One-time Aston Villa youngster Donacien, 28, said: "It’s funny, I mean odd, the way things work out in football. Football is this magical journey and it’s hard to describe to people how certain things happen, the reason why they happen and how you end up where you do.
"Football is football and not really like anything else in life. You never know what is going to happen round the corner. Literally anything can happen and it was hard trying to stay as professional as I could and to keep applying myself to see what might happen.”
Donacien has so far clocked up 84 senior appearances in all competitions for Town, which doesn’t seem like a lot for the time he has been at the club, but it underlines how far out of the first-team reckoning he had dropped, to such an extent that he looked odds-on to be moving elsewhere at the end of the 2020/21 season when his first contract expired.
Instead, however, the club — under new owners who had only taken control two months earlier — decided to take up their option on his services for a further year. Then, in November, he signed a fresh deal through to 2023 that also includes an option for the club to increase it by another year when the time comes.
Donacien is thriving at the moment. Only top goalscorer Wes Burns denied him last season’s Player of the Year award and his performance in last week’s 3-0 home trouncing of MK Dons was arguably his best in a Town shirt, a sure sign of his outstanding progress, particularly since McKenna’s arrival to replace Paul Cook eight months ago.
He had two assists, teeing up Burns and Conor Chaplin for their first goals of the new campaign, and said: "I love to play my part like that. Coming into the new season that was one of the things I was determined to improve upon, arriving in the box at the right time.
"I’m up there at the top end of the pitch quite a lot so I’m just trying to make sure I’m picking the right deliveries and making sure I’m there to help out.
"The gaffer has made it clear that he wants goals and assists from defenders; he wants all the players to be involved with every move and staying connected, whether it’s me coming from the right side or George [Edmundson] from the left or Woolfy [Luke Woolfenden] with one of his runs through the middle.
"If opposition teams sit off and let us have the ball, we can get the attacks going from the back so the role is about a lot more than just defending, although we all know that’s the main part of the job.
"We’ve been playing well, scoring goals, keeping clean sheets and putting points on the board. It all helps to keep the boys in good spirits and in a good mood. But I’m not setting any personal targets. I just want to be up there and helping the boys as much as I can.
"It’s great that the manager has shown faith in me. I’m buzzing and it’s like I always said, to be out there playing for the team is what I always wanted.
"I’m really enjoying my football at the moment because we are a team where everyone loves to work hard for each other. The way the gaffer sets us up, it’s a joy to be involved with this team.
"I would say he’s the best manager I’ve ever worked with and I know he’s probably going to read this. He’s only eight years older than me so he’s one of the new, young coaches in the game. They see the game so differently to the older generation of coaches. As a man he’s always up for a chat and when we do talk it’s on a level where we can all say what we feel.”
Donacien may still be waiting to open his scoring account for Town, but when he was asked if breaking his duck would be more satisfying than helping his side to keep a third successive clean sheet in Shropshire at the weekend, he replied: "No, I’m a defender, so a clean sheet is always the priority.
"That’s my bread and butter and I was gutted — we all were — that we didn’t keep one in the first game against Bolton and also at Forest Green.
"But it was a great feeling to prevent both MK Dons and Burton from scoring — it’s a brilliant feeling to win but to keep a clean sheet is like the icing on the cake when you’re a defender.”