Town boss Mick McCarthy has confirmed that he is looking to sign Chippenham Town defender Tyrone Mings, as reported by TWTD yesterday. The 19-year-old played for a Blues XI in a 2-1 friendly defeat to a Nike Academy side on Monday.

Town say a deal has been agreed with the Evostik Southern League club and once the paperwork is tied up the defender will be available for selection immediately with the transfer window not applying at that level. Mings is at Portman Road today and is expected to sign on the dotted line this afternoon.

McCarthy: “He played in the U21 game the other day and I’m looking to sign him.”

Mings has been playing alongside Russell Osman’s son Toby at Chippenham and the Blues boss says the Blues U18s coach was partly responsible for bringing him to the club: “Russell and Steve McCall.

“We invited him in to play and he did well on Monday. He’s a left-back or left-sided centre-back, he’s 6ft 3in tall.”

Bath-born Mings spent many years with Southampton’s academy before moving to Bristol Rovers and then into non-league football with Yate Town before joining Chippenham — where his father Adie had been manager and then director of football before recently joining Chelsea's scouting set-up — at the start of the season.

McCarthy added: “He’s come through an academy so that helps, he’s been brought up at a club. He’s not just somebody who has come through and we’ve suddenly found him. I was really pleased with him on Monday.”

The Town manager says he’s not a player he sees purely as someone for the development squad: “We’ll see how he does. I think [he has a chance of pushing on], just having seen him for an hour and 10 minutes in a game. I decided after five minutes.”

The team which faced the Nike Academy, in which new Town scout Dave Bowman works as a consultant, was made up the Town first team squad members who haven’t recently been in the team.

Photo: Action Images

whosroundisitanyway added 15:33 - Dec 13 Dont want to join his fan club quite yet, just incase they get labeled as "Mingers"! Hopefully a shrewd signing by super Mick. If you can impress him in five minutes you must be good.
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gazzmac4 added 15:38 - Dec 13 The key for me here is he came through the Southampton academy. The same place to produce Bale, Walcott et al. Granted he may not be as handy as them but we know that they have an excellent development system there. If we can benefit from that and he picks up the odd 1st team game for us in the latter stages of the season when we are safe (touch wood, fingers crossed etc) this could provie useful. These are thje players we need to go in alongside the more experienced onces. Build for the future. And if it doenst work out then we havent forked out millions in fee and wages. Excellent stuff all round.

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Elizabeth added 16:30 - Dec 13 We will all just have to wait and see what ability this young man has,but as commented by a fellow supporter it is a welcome change from the usual has beens that have been signed by our previous two managers.
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WeWereZombies added 16:38 - Dec 13 I hope it doesn't happen but if Clegg fecks up the deal I am sure Phil will use something along the lines of 'Evostik League signing comes unstuck' or 'Clegg hasn't got a glue'
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dirtydingusmagee added 09:22 - Dec 14 perhaps his mum will let us have a vase to put in the Trophy cabinet, its been a while !.
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