Town forward Sammie Szmodics has admitted the long-running transfer saga during the summer window was difficult to deal with but is delighted to have made the switch to Portman Road.
After weeks of talks with Blackburn Rovers, a deal for Szmodics was completed in August after the two sides settled on an initial fee of £9 million for last season’s Championship top goalscorer.
Despite not featuring in pre-season, Szmodics started the season with Rovers in fine form and showed professionalism before the move to Suffolk was finalised.
His positive attitude ultimately led to the 28-year-old getting the Premier League move he was keen to make, but the Blues’ new signing did not hold back from discussing the challenges the off-season presented.
"It was really tough,” he admitted. "Blackburn were really good because the Premier League is everyone’s dream and the transfer was going on a for six or seven weeks and there’s no hiding away that I wanted to come here.
"I let Blackburn know my feelings and I wasn’t playing any pre-season games but I was still training. Sometimes I was training with the team and sometimes I was training on my own but I was going in and being professional.
"I did say to Blackburn that I don’t want to play in any of the pre-season games which they were fine with and I kept everything professional at all times, which I think helped this move.
"When it came to the final moments of trying to get the deal over the line, because I’d been professional and good to Blackburn, they were good to me so I’ve got nothing but good words to say about Blackburn.
"But it is tough because ultimately I wanted this move to go through and you need to stay fit and not get injured. So Blackburn were brilliant with me and then speaking with Ipswich, they don’t want me to get injured, they want to get you for as little as possible, Blackburn want to sell me for as much.
"So much goes into the transfer, but I’ve seen things in the press before where players throw their toys out the pram and that doesn’t help. You’ve got a job to do and you’re still contracted by Blackburn, who offered me a big deal to stay, but my mind was already made up for me to come here.
"I’m over the moon that it finally got done and I’m just enjoying every minute.”
Since the move, Szmodics says he has continued to learn and improve and that it has been helped by the ease in which he has settled into the club, being familiar with the area and some of the players and staff.
He said: "I’ve found it great. I knew a lot of the lads anyway from playing against them and I know a couple of the staff from my time at Bristol City.
"I’ve heard so many good things about the manager and I’ve seen it up close and personal now, it’s fantastic. I feel like I’ve really improved as a player tactically as well as on the ball, he’s made my life very easy to adapt.
"It’s an area I grew up in, so when you’re settled off the pitch it can really help you focus on it and I think that’s really helped in that way.”
Having shone in the Championship last season, there was bound to be interest in Szmodics from a number of different clubs, but Town’s interest proved to be the most significant.
That ultimately ended up working out for the forward, who has described his move to the Blues as a perfect fit and one he had visions of making since the start of the transfer window.
Szmodics said: "I signed a new deal halfway through the season and I was really enjoying my time at Blackburn. It’s every boy’s dream to play in the Premier League and for me Ipswich ticked every single box.
"Back home, speaking to some of the lads and the goalie-coach Rene Gilmartin who I played with at Colchester, he just filled me with information about the manager and how good the manager is.
"For me, being back home in the Premier League and working under someone that I feel can really improve me as a player ticked every box for me. It was just perfect.
"My great nan was an Ipswich Town fan and a lot of my good friends are Ipswich Town fans, so it was quite hard when they were asking to not say anything when all the links and rumours were coming about. There’s probably a lot of pressure from my friends to do well.”
One of Szmodics’s more notable goals of the last campaign was a late winner in April away to Leeds United, who were in the midst of a tense promotion battle with the Blues.
"When I signed at Ipswich and had the first meeting in this room with the manager, he welcomed me to the team and said we’ve got a clip to show of Sam and he showed that goal,” Szmodics recalled.
"It obviously helped with Ipswich’s push for promotion and made a lot of Ipswich fans very happy.”
Another talking point since Szmodics’s arrival has been his previous record at Portman Road and his back-and-forth with the Town supporters, particularly in front of the North Stand.
However, Szmodics says his football banter is nothing personal and sees himself as a heart-on-sleeve character when it comes to a matchday, and is eager to create new memories on Suffolk soil.
He said: "I think I’ve scored every time I’ve played at Portman Road bar one game. Growing up as a Colchester lad, people think there’s some rivalry.
"I used to see things like ‘I hate Ipswich, I’d never play for Ipswich Town’, which has never been the case, but it’s not something I’ve ever needed to come out and openly say.
"I’ve got family members that support Ipswich, I’ve got family members that do support Colchester United, there’s no hiding that and growing up playing for Colchester I’ve always wanted to beat Ipswich.
"Every team I’ve played for I wear my heart on my sleeve. I’m a serious character and not a serious character – I love the banter, I’m loud and I’m the same on the pitch.
"If I score against a team and the fans are giving me a bit then I’ll give them a bit back and at Portman Road it always used to be like that.
"Scoring at the Etihad was unbelievable, but that first goal at Portman Road would be amazing, hopefully it’s at that end to get them cheering as opposed to booing and giving me some gestures!”
Throughout his career, Szmodics has found ways to improve his game and progressively become a better footballer as he rose through the leagues from League Two to the Premier League.
That growth accelerated while Blackburn, where Szmodics puts a large part of the success story to the work of former manager Jon Dahl Tomasson.
"I’ve got to give a lot of credit to Jon Dahl,” he said. "I got on really well with him, it was a tough start when he first came in because of his total football.
"He was my first foreign manager, he came in and his principles were completely different to what I was used to and he changed a lot at that football club.
"The way he played suited me down to a tee and I played my best football under him and he grew my confidence. He left halfway through the season and I’d already scored a number of goals under him.
"Kieran [McKenna] is very similar – he wants what is best for you, he knows your qualities, he doesn't complicate it and you know exactly what you need to do, but there’s a lot of detail in his work which we see behind the scenes that people don’t.
"It’s only when you see it first-hand that he’s such a good manager and man manager that you just feel welcomed straight away. When you’re settled off the pitch, you can perform on it.
"He’s taken the pressure off the new lads, it’s a new group coming into a new league, not many of us have played in the Premier League.
"People aren’t expecting much from us but we’re a confident group and we’re all sat here truly believing that this is the league we can be in.
"Under a manager like himself, who knows where we can end up this year.”
Reflecting further on Tomasson, Szmodics says there was one key detail which was initially difficult to understand, but helped the Republic of Ireland international to become the player he is today.
He said: "His biggest thing is that he doesn’t want you to take more than two touches with the football and that sounds mental when you say it, but it speeds up the play so much and it took a lot to get used to because you want to get on the ball and dribble.
"He used to come in and if you take more than two touches in training he would stop it. When he first joined it was like ‘what is this geezer doing, we need to dribble with the ball to get some space’.
"But when we understood it, it worked an absolute treat and it’s probably what he’s doing with the Swedish national team now. He just simplified my whole game, he would show me clips of me dribbling and ask me why I’m dribbling with the ball.
"When you look back now to how I play with my one-touch passing and running, it all comes from him simplifying my game and getting in better scoring opportunities.
"He was a goalscorer himself so I’ve probably learned a lot from him in training.”
On the topic of goalscorers, one man whose journey to the top level has also come later in his career is Leicester City’s Jamie Vardy, who was 27 years old when he made his Premier League debut and has gone on to score 138 goals in the competition.
"What he’s done is obviously amazing and to still be doing it at his age now,” Szmodics said of the Foxes striker. "I had a good chat with him at the end of last season after we played against Leicester and he congratulated me on the goals.
"It’s quite a similar story, maybe he’s a bit later than me, but he’s worked up and he’s doing it week in, week out in the Premier League now.
"It’s something that I ultimately want to achieve, this is my first season in the Premier League and our journeys are probably very similar so I can look at aspects of his game and the way he’s done it and it's probably very similar to me.
"He just congratulated me on the goals. From someone of his stature and what he’s done, playing for England and scoring the goals he has scored, it’s obviously very nice of him.
"He gave me a bottle of champagne and said congratulations for the season I had, which is something he doesn’t need to do. I don’t really know him on a personal level but it just shows the sort of character that he is.”