Freddie Sears admits he doesn’t mind who he lines up alongside for Town — as long as he can retain his place in Mick McCarthy’s starting XI.

Asked to name his favourite strike partner Sears responded: “It’s difficult to say, really. Last season I played a lot with Murph, which was really good.

"Didzy was injured so I didn’t get much of an opportunity to play with him. It’s good to play with all of them and they all have different attributes.

“Didzy is really good at coming short and leaving space for me in behind, Murph is great to play with and Pits [Brett Pitman] is also great to play with.

“I got to play with Pits quite a few times in pre-season games and I really enjoyed that. It’s just about getting the right partnership and getting the right people on the pitch at the right time.

“You probably need a run of games to get a partnership going and that’s difficult when there are four good strikers for the manager to choose from.

“It’s going to be a case of two of us not playing all of the time and it’s up to the gaffer to get the best out of all four of us, whatever way he can do it.”

Sears has no problem with operating wide, if requested, and added: “I’m happy to play a role for the team. My preferred position is obviously as a striker but if I have to play out on the left or right in order to start a game I’ll do it for the team.

“I think the gaffer knows I can play in that position and I know myself I can do it. But it’s all about us sticking together, looking forward to this week’s game and doing our utmost to pocket all three points.”

But no matter who McCarthy selects Sears believes Town, with just one win in their previous six league games, are under pressure to beat a Huddersfield team who were on the wrong end of a 3-0 scoreline at Wolves last time out and who are currently six places off the bottom of the Championship table.

Sears added: “There’s a lot of pressure on us in every game because we are expected to beat teams.

"No disrespect to Huddersfield but we are expected to beat them at home and the fans will be turning up on Saturday expecting us to win comfortably. Hopefully we can do that and give them something to smile about again.

“We want to win and I think we want a good performance. We don’t just want to go into a game and scrape the result because I think we’re better than that.

"We would take a scraped win now but the gaffer says the performance is the most important thing because if you get that the win normally follows.”

Meanwhile, when he’s not training or playing Sears like to head for the golf course when the opportunity presents itself, adding: “I like to play a bit of golf if I can. It’s nice to take your mind off football sometimes.

"I’ve also got a young son who makes it easy for me to escape from the game. I can go home and switch off, forget about win, lose or draw.

“It’s always good to get home to my family because football can be a bit 24/7 and there are times when it seems you can’t get away from it.”

Photo: Action Images

battyblue added 14:31 - Oct 16 Well done Searsy your best and most effective position is Striker and that is where you should play good luck for tomorrow a good time to score your first hat-trick for us.
1

Seasider added 16:17 - Oct 16 Five features on today about/from Freddie. Comes over well,and says it as it is, more than most players interviewed Must be difficult to know what to say when you are nominated,and a bit like a politician,they have to toe the club line regardless of what they think,hence we hear similar things most weeks
1

Blogs 298 bloggers

Ipswich Town Polls