Chris Hutchings says he’s never seen anyone quite like midfielder Jay Emmanuel-Thomas. The Blues assistant boss says the summer signing from Arsenal has made significant progress this season but still has plenty to learn.

Asked which other player the 21-year-old reminds him of, Hutchings said he’s one of a kind: “I’ve never seen anyone like him!

“He’s got all the tools but it’s his first season. He’s come from Arsenal who play a totally different way to playing in the Championship and Arsenal have a specific way of playing, a bit like Barcelona.

“He’s had to adjust to that, adjust to where we want him to play, how we want him to play and his workload off the ball.

“At Arsenal, even in the reserves and at youth level, they’ve got great kids and good players at that level and they play when they’re on the ball because they’ve got great quality all around the team.

“Sometimes we have to play off the ball and he’s got to adapt and learn, and credit to him he’s done that and he’s still showing these flashes of genius that he has in his locker.

“We’ve got to get that on a consistent basis. We’re asking a lot of him and he’s asking a lot of himself now and he’s come to the fore. It’s about how consistent can he be.”

Hutchings says he and the rest of the management team are working on the youngster’s tendency to lose concentration: “He’s so unpredictable, he does things at ease and at will, but at times he will switch off, so we have to keep barking at him, ‘Get back in’, ‘Close down there’, do this, do that.

“He probably gets fed up of us shouting at him, to be honest. But we encourage as well. When he does good things, we’re the first to applaud him.”

Hutchings says the £1.5 million signing from the Gunners has got fitter as the season has progressed: “We paid a lot of money for him and we’ll be the first to admit that we didn’t feel he was as fit as what he should have been or what we would have liked

“And he’s worked hard on that and he’s improved. At first I think he was like a greyhound. A greyhound has a race and he’s knackered and he can’t run another one because he doesn’t have the stamina.

“Now he’s got that stamina, he can do it again and again. He can be stronger and the more knowledge he picks up, the more we can help him to become a better player.

“He’s got to keep his feet firmly on the ground and work hard and we’ll be the first to make sure he does that.”

The assistant boss says the Londoner has the potential to show Arsenal that they were wrong to let him move on: “That will be seen in later times. Whether he can do that is down to us to get the best out of him and his desire to see how far he wants to go and how far he wants to bounce back to get to the top, hopefully with this football club.

“He’s still got a lot to learn. He knows that and we know that, but he’s doing OK at the moment.”

Meanwhile, Emmanual-Thomas and other members of the Town squad are taking part in a photo and film shoot in next season's new kit this afternoon. The club will reveal the two new strips in April.

Photo: Action Images

BlueBailey24 added 13:58 - Mar 13 don't know why people can't have their opinion without being bombarded with rudeness. of course peoples opinions will be challenged, that's one main point of this but why not disagree and then put your point across without being so childish about it with sarcy pointscoring? If Nitro thinks Arsenal resemble dogsh*t then so be it :P
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TractorBeezer added 14:05 - Mar 13 From The Red Cafe What would happen if Barcelona played themselves? Ridiculous hypothetical, of course, but what if someone invented travel between parallel universes and was able to make two Barcelona teams, with the exact same players, play against each other. What on earth would that match look like? I ask because the common refrain these days is that everyone should want to emulate Barcelona, and whilst that has some merit in regards to pressing and possession, I wonder what on earth football would look like if everyone really did play that way. Barcelona are such a unique team, whose matches almost always follow similar patterns of possession. Even when they play teams with a similar approach, it doesn't go anywhere near answering this question because they have so much more quality than anyone else. So more seriously, what would a match be like if it involved two teams of comparable brilliance playing 'the Barcelona way'? They couldn't both dominate possession, nor could they both play with such intense pressing, because Barcelona get away with that due to how little they have to do it in a match. Nitro...have you ever tasted dogsh*t?

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Bergholtblue added 14:14 - Mar 13 Not wishing to appear negative and wreek the wrath of every other poster on here but I have question some of Paul Hutchings' comments. "It's his first season". Well yes as a Town player, but he has played at this level many times. 11 appearances for Blackpool in 2009; 14 appearances for Doncaster in 2010 and 14 appearances for Cardiff in 2011. "He's come from Arsenal who play a totally different way" Well yes but he only ever made 3 appearances only 1 in a Premiership match. I wonder how much this 'press release' is to try to build his self esteem and keep fans on his side. I know a few around me are beginning to moan about him. I have to admit that whilst he can show flashes of brilliance at times he is inconsistent and can sometimes fade out completely in the second half. I hope he comes good because he has the potential of being a very exciting player, there again so did Dean Bowditch

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nitroblue1970 added 14:50 - Mar 13 Bury blue- the first season back in the prem was awesome after that playoff final, free, attacking football, using fullbacks, good balls into the box, killer defence splitting passes and strikers who could find the net regularly.Those indeed were the days! Bluebailey...thank you, but i was only teasing! Tractorbreezer- I have tasted dogsh*t actually, I was a kid playing on the local rec and did a wonderful Beattie like sliding tackle straight through a pile of it! It went up my side and into the corner of my mouth.I threw my guts up as you would expect...I did the exact same thing 35 years later after eating a burger in the Emirates!!

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Surco72 added 15:01 - Mar 13 nitro .. i must apologise for not picking up on your humour ,i am just so used to people attacking the club ,management , players etc at every given opportunity and thought it was just a pop at Hutchings . Agree totally in your round up of the premier days under Burley ,built on a solid core through the middle , sadly which we are still missing at the back . Not a million miles away though ? But i will say you accused me of being on here 24 hrs a day yet you have posted 5 or 6 times on the same thread over the last 6 hours !!!

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Garv added 15:04 - Mar 13 Bergholt Bowditch didn't have anywhere near the natural talent this guy has. And in reference to your comment about limited appearances for Arsenal's first team, have you not thought that their youth and reserve teams are taught to play very much the same way, the style of football is similar the whole way through the club.
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alfromcol added 15:15 - Mar 13 nitroblue1970 You missed my point
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whittonite added 15:21 - Mar 13 old hutchings is over doing it a bit when he says he has never seen anyone like jet.has he got a t.v.? if he did he would see that jet has similarities to faustino asprilla .columbian i believe who played for parma in italy and for newcastle utd and played in and scored i think in the famous 4 3 game against liverpool.jet is a bit more livelier than him though.
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nitroblue1970 added 15:27 - Mar 13 Surco...Im not a fan of Hutchings, never was, doubt I ever will be! Not a big fan of Mcarthy or Jewell to be honest but he's the man at the moment so I support the team. Margaret Thatcher could be our manager I would still be at Portman Road every game. As for my posts today....well it appears that I don't have quite as much work to do as maybe I should have! Alfromcol...I do that a lot I also mis-spelled your name!

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buryblue77 added 15:44 - Mar 13 nitro, I know I said I envy you for seeing Barca at our place and also for having the Nou Camp tour (something the wife has promised me!!) and also for being at PR every game, I wish I could, don't you just love those jobs that make you work every Sat!!! I did get along to the Bristol C game though and glad I did, but I don't envy the diving into the doggy dirt story though, I am sorry however, but I did have a bit of a chuckle when reading that!!!

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TractorBeezer added 15:50 - Mar 13 Good one Nitro. Think I'll wait a bit before having lunch though!
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nitroblue1970 added 16:13 - Mar 13 Bury blue...'Im very lucky I don't have to work weekends any more but I used too and it meant my visits to PR were restricted to Tuesday evenings five times a season! So I feel your pain! I'm glad you found it funny...the "friends" I was playing with at the time found it hilarious and reminded me of it at every opportunity at school and beyond. After that incident I was known as "shi*t head" or "sh*t eater"..kids are so cruel sometimes! Tractorbeezer hope you enjoyed your lunch, chocolate spread sarnies by any chance?

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sereneblue added 16:18 - Mar 13 Maragret Thatcher- Now she was a true blue.
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Bergholtblue added 17:15 - Mar 13 Garv I totally agree. The point I was making was that Bowditch (in my opinion) did not, and now never will, reach his full potential. Whilst JET is by far a superior player, if fear that he too may not reach his potential. He has the natural talent to be one of the best in the Country let alone the Championship. Hutchings comments about him switching off is a worry and a big doubt about his ability to concentrate and give his all for 90 minutes. I disagree with with Hutching in blaming it on coming to the Championship from Arsenal because he has had enough experince at this level. Don't get me wrong I wish him all the best, but someone has got to find a way to get the best out of him for the full 90 minutes, because we haven't seen it yet.

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mightytown added 18:28 - Mar 13 i think some posters would do well to wash the sand out of their vaginas rather then squabble over trivial matters obscurely plucked from brief interviews irrelevant to the subject at hand. it becomes particularly tedious when posters begin to pick at each others grammar and score points by questioning each others grasp of the english language. of course everyone's entitled to their opinion but if you are going to have an opinion, why not make it interesting and engaging, rather then odious and pedantic. i like to read what my fellow fans think about our club, players and how were doing but often the threads descend into the sort of mud slinging you see on jeremy kyle in a feature screened with the title 'if the dna test proves your not a town fan, then we're over' rant over, apologies

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BlueBailey24 added 18:38 - Mar 13 mightyipswich - glad we are of the same opinion although the your in your not a town fan should have actually read you're, haha just joking!
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mightytown added 18:57 - Mar 13 BlueBailey24 - i'll spare you the embarrassment of pointing out my username is actually mightytown, not ipswich!!! Oh no, now i'm at it!!!! do well mate!!!
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Ipswichbusiness added 19:05 - Mar 13 To change the subject slightly, I note that Hutchings priased Martin to the skies and then Martin was dropped to the subs' bench for the Hull match, so presumably that means that JET can forget about starting on Saturday. Why don't we raid the reserve teams of Premiership clubs more often rather than signing the Ellingtons and Bowyers of this world?
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Garv added 23:35 - Mar 13 Because you can end up with the Leadbitter's of this world. Bowyer isn't that bad.
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BlueBailey24 added 12:26 - Mar 14 mighty town - haha what an idiot with a red face I am now, my apoligies!
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