Town manager Kieran McKenna has a couple of roles in mind for new signing Chuba Akpom to play more regularly, but says the 29-year-old, who joined on a season-long loan from Ajax on Sunday, is capable of operating in a wide variety of forward positions.
Just over a week ago, Akpom had seemed set to join Birmingham City with a loan deal done with the Dutch giants, however, the Blues swooped and the Londoner preferred a switch to Suffolk rather than the Midlands.
The move will become a permanent switch for £7 million should Town win promotion to the Premier League this season.
"We’re happy to have him,” McKenna said. "Really good Championship experience and pedigree. Has played different leagues now, has picked up lots of experiences, played in the Champions League last year [with loan side Lille]. A really versatile forward, who we think can bring us a lot.
"He’s had a really positive impact in his first couple of days around the training ground, upbeat guy, he’s excited to be here and we’re happy to have him.”
Akpom’s best season was playing as a number 10 for Middlesbrough in 2022/23, winning the Championship Golden Boot for netting 28 goals and bagging one more in the FA Cup.
Asked where he sees the former Arsenal academy youngster fitting in at Town, McKenna said: "I think he can do all of the roles across the front four. He’s played wide left, he’s played inside left, he’s played as a centre-forward, he’s played as a number 10 and he’s played wide right, so he can fill all of them.
"I’ve got one or two roles that I see him playing a little bit more. Usually with us, it’s more about trying to fit the strengths of the players into the team rather than pigeon-holing them into having to be this position or that.
"We know what Chuba’s good at and we’re going to try and get him into those situations as often as we can.”
Akpom, like midfielder Jens Cajuste, who rejoined on loan from Napoli last week, wasn’t considered ready to be involved in the Carabao Cup tie at Bromley.
"They need a bit more time, neither of them have done, certainly in Jens’s case, any sort of a pre-season,” McKenna explained.
"In Chuba’s case, sort of a very broken pre-season without any match minutes yet and a very disruptive week last week to say the least, so it would be reckless over the course of trying to have a successful season to rush them onto the pitch tonight. We’ll have to make decisions going into the weekend.”