Assistant boss Terry Connor says Sylvan Ebanks-Blake’s return from injury will help spur on David McGoldrick as he looks to become the first Town striker to score 20 league goals in a season since David Johnson in the 1999/00 promotion campaign.

With 16 Championship games remaining, McGoldrick is currently on 14 — plus two in the FA Cup — Johnson having hit 22 on the way to the play-offs which took the Blues into the Premier League.

Ebanks-Blake — who hit 23 and 25 league goals as he top scored in the Championship in the 2007/08 and 2008/09 seasons with Plymouth and Wolves - is back in the squad for today’s game against Blackpool having suffered a hamstring injury on his Town debut having signed a contract until the end of the season in December.

“Sylvan’s taken a little while,” Connor said. “When he first came in, he got injured against Preston in the cup and that set him back a little bit, but he’s now been out on the training ground for the best part of 10 days and, as you can imagine, he’s raring to go and wanting to contribute.

“That helps create that environment where David’s looking over his shoulder and thinking that if he wants to get to 20 goals, then he’s got to keep Sylvan out of the team. The same with Daryl Murphy, same with Frank Nouble and everyone else.

“There’s a nice little pool of strikers that we’ve got there and hopefully they’ll create enough pressure amongst themselves that they all keep doing well and scoring goals.”

Connor, who previously worked with Ebanks-Blake at Wolves, says the 27-year-old can’t wait to get his Town career up and running: “Sylvan’s a very good player, but a hungry [Sylvan], who’s ready to play, he’s invaluable really.

“He’s in the squad, he’s been brought here for a reason and he wants to start repaying that as soon as he possibly can. He wants to play, he wants to get back to scoring his goals and we think he can only benefit Ipswich Town.”

Meanwhile, Connor says he’s been pleased with new loan signing Paul Green since he joined up with the squad last week: “He’s been fantastic, he’s a good professional, his background tells you everything about Paul.

“We’ve just delighted to have him and Frazer Richardson at the club. They’re certainly lending their experience and their knowledge to the rest of the group.”

Photo: Action Images

Marshalls_Mullet added 06:11 - Feb 15 OR, play SEB WITH Didsy!?
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nutter added 07:18 - Feb 15 with nouble listed as competition i don't think didsy will have to worry too much
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sirmichealmills added 08:48 - Feb 15 With all our wonderful creative midfield players should be a real test NOT to score on a regular basis. Got to be nouble and a player who hasn't got a lot of ability and just runs about like a dog in a park Oh hang on.
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JackITFC96 added 10:13 - Feb 15 No mention if Taylor again!?
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Ipswich121 added 10:43 - Feb 15 Although I think he could be a really good signing, Didsy obviously can't be dropped, and we can't break up the Murphy mcgoldrick combo, and we've seen what happens when we play 3 up top(although it was with nouble) we go back to having 3 individual strikers not working together, maybe you could drop Didsy into midfield/just behind them BUT IT WOULD NEED TO BE IN A 3-5-2!!!!!!!!!!!!! Hope I'm wrong but with micks tactics I'm struggling to see how this will work.

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Mark added 10:52 - Feb 15 How do we fit in a striker with a 1-in-3 goal ratio for his two previous clubs? I am glad we have a problem like this!!! Get him fit, play him, then sign him up on a longer deal.
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Michael11 added 12:14 - Feb 15 First player to score 20 since David Johnson has really surprised me. I felt sure that Darren Bent or Shefki Kuqi would have scored that in the 2005 year with Joe Royle. Hopefully McGoldrick gets his 6 goals and fires us into the play-offs.
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