Assistant manager Martyn Pert believes new signing Ashley Young will be a “real asset” for the Blues in the season ahead, the former England international having made his first appearance in a Town shirt in last night’s 2-1 friendly victory over Charlton Athletic at Colchester’s JobServe Community Stadium.
Young, 40, came on along with Omari Hutchinson in the 62nd minute for their first games of pre-season, the right-back having signed last week following his departure from Everton and the forward after his exploits with the victorious England U21s at the Euros in Slovakia last month.
The pair appeared to immediately forge an understanding down the right-hand side and similarly are understood to have hit it off away from the pitch with the 21-year-old’s departure now looking less of a fait accompli than was the case a week or so ago following Brentford’s rebuffed bids.
"Both of them came on at the same time and it was nice for them to play together,” Pert told TownTV.
"Ashley was really good when he came on, he had some lovely passing moments on the ball, was talking and his organisation and leadership and all that, you could see that on the pitch. He’s going to be a real asset for us.”
Overall, reflecting on the display, Pert added: "Really happy with it. Obviously with it being just down the road it’s nice as we’ve been travelling a lot, so it was nice to have a game which was close to home.
"The pitch was really good and the lads got really good minutes. Some of them got 90 minutes.
"Really happy with the performance, it was a really intense game against an opponent we’re going to face in the season, so it was one to look forward to and it was a good game, I thought.”
Pert confirmed that the changes made were all premeditated with Cedric Kipre, Cameron Humphreys and Conor Townsend the only starters to play all 90 minutes.
"Everything was planned, nice to get some 90 minutes in there,” he continued. "The front lads, they’re used to rotating on and off in the season, so it was good to get them on and have 20 minutes of freshness, coming on and getting used to coming onto the pitch, which is an important skill as well, coming into the game and being ready to impact it straight away.”
With only Saturday’s friendly away against Ligue 1 AJ Auxerre in France to go before the season proper gets under way with a live Sky game at newly promoted Birmingham City on Friday 8th August, Pert says he’s pleased with progress.
"We had little bit of a shorter pre-season than we have normally because of the end of last season being a bit closer to the start of this season,” he reflected.
"But really happy with the group, they’re really coming together as a group and they’ve all had a really good spell of training now, and we’ve been pretty good in terms of managing people and little niggles here and there, but generally it’s been pretty good.”
Meanwhile, former Blues loanee Brandon Williams, 24, played the final 15 minutes for Hull City in their friendly against Sunderland last night having joined the Tigers on trial.
The right-back, a free agent following his release by Manchester United a year ago, was playing his first match since his last appearance for Town in December 2023.
https://x.com/IpswichTown/status/1950316972723564910