Boss Mick McCarthy has confirmed that he tried to re-sign former loanee Ryan Tunnicliffe — who is back at Portman Road with Wigan today — before he joined the Latics on a similar basis last month. TWTD revealed that the Blues were attempting to bring the 21-year-old back to Portman Road after his previous spell had been cut short when parent club Manchester United sold him to Fulham on transfer deadline day.

“I did,” McCarthy said. “I enquired and Wigan enquired and I guess they were flying. I’ve no bad feelings towards him.

“He maybe thinks that they’ve got a better chance of going up, and they have got a better chance because they’ve got more points than us and two games in hand.

“And they’ve got a bigger and stronger squad than we’ve got, to be fair. It’s a squad that’s been added to. And he’s from the North-West anyway.”

McCarthy was delighted with the former England U17 international’s performances for the Blues during the first half of the season: “Tunners is a good player. It was strange that he left us and then ended up leaving Manchester United to go to Fulham.

“He could have come back here and he’s gone to Wigan on loan. Who could have predicted that when he was playing for us two or three months ago?

“His contribution here was really solid and vital for what we were doing and I’ve a lot of time for Tunners.”

Photo: Action Images

Jimmy86 added 07:18 - Mar 15 No real loss to be honest, because lets face it he didn't score or create anything of real note for our strikers in his 30 odd appearances for us anyway. Plus in my opinion he actually played better wide left linking up with cressy when really he was a centre mid by trade. When he did play in his more favoured central role he didnt grab the game by the scruff of the neck and affect it, a la drinkwater at leicester for instance. Williams is a much better option.

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Yallop added 07:57 - Mar 15 Score or create anything of note. Is this Skuse or Tunnicliffe you're referring too ?
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Surco72 added 08:01 - Mar 15 Was quite glad we didn't get Tunners don't think he adds a lot more to the midfield we have Skuse,Hyam,Green,Tabb who all do same job its just that Skuse is far better than rest and needs a player to create alongside him .Williams should be that better option
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Yallop added 08:05 - Mar 15 Skuse would be better if he added a bit of Tunnicliffes aggression to his game. The way he strolled around at Boro last week was awful.
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Jimmy86 added 08:07 - Mar 15 Was referring to tunnicliffe, but the same could also be said of skuse and of our entire midfield!! Mick wants more goals from midfield, shame he only plays midfield work horses in there then
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Michael11 added 09:30 - Mar 15 @Jimmy86 I wouldn't mention anything about his lack of creativity or goals until 5pm tonight if I were you! Could come back to haunt us. I do agree that he's not a big loss but I'd rather have him than Green that's for sure.
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TimmyH added 11:12 - Mar 15 I'll bite my right leg off if Tunnicliffe scores today! I feel he did work quite hard but as mentioned we've already got a number of players who do that already so we didn't really need him back.
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