Town boss Paul Cook has confirmed that Sam Morsy is the Blues' club captain and says the players are now settling into life at Portman Road and into Suffolk more generally.

Morsy has skippered every game he has been involved in since finally ending the suspension which was a hangover from his final game with former club Middlesbrough, although up to now there had been no official confirmation that the job is the Egyptian international’s on a permanent basis, Lee Evans having worn the armband earlier in the season.

The 30-year-old, Town's final transfer window addition, previously skippered Cook's Chesterfield and Wigan teams.

“Samy is club captain,” Cook confirmed. “It was always going to be [the case] with a lad who has played with me before, and I think Lee Evans has probably had his best game for the club on Tuesday night.

“I think Lee has, probably like a lot of lads, struggled to get going at times with the expectancy and everything else that comes with playing for a club of our size and captaining it.

“And I just think for Samy and for Lee and for all our players, it’s now time to shine.

“There’s no fear from us and we have nothing to fear at this club. We’ve got 20,000 home fans every week that want to support us and we’ve got a travelling support, and it’s about time for our lads now to be what they can be and step up to the plate.”

Does Morsy have a role in helping his team-mates settle in at the club? “There’s a big role for everyone to play. You know yourself when you move into a new area, some of the lads will have kids and they might need schools, their partners move away, and they have a family.

“They’re living in hotels, they’ll be looking for houses and it does take time, and it’s something now that we speak to you guys about.

“I don’t get how supporters just want managers sacked on a result, I physically can’t get my head around it. But that’s football today and I get it.

“They don’t see the work that goes on and I’m not saying all managers should be given an eternity to get things right. I’m not saying that.

“But when you have as much upheaval as we’ve had as a football club for anyone to think that it’s just magic dust is just deluded. It doesn’t work like that and all the lads now are coming together like I’d love to, and I’d want to see happening.

“Whether it’s going out for meals together, whether it’s any type of socialising together, whether it’s in the training ground a long time training together.

“And you can see the friendships grow, you can see it in the celebrations. I watched a handshake between [Wes] Burns and [Janoi] Donacien the other night and isn’t it lovely to see?

“Wes Burns has come on as sub, but you’d never know he’d been left out of the team and this is what we’ve got to develop at the club, these habits for lads who just want success for this club and something that I do feel does take time to grow without a doubt.”

Reflecting further on the squad getting to know one another, he added: “I think that was one of the challenges for us if you look at the start of the season when we assembled a very talented squad.

“The reality is other teams in the league, if you use Rotherham as an example, they are a squad that’s been ingrained by their manager [Paul Warne], who is a very good manager, for two and three years now, so they are probably just ahead of us at the minute.

“And it doesn’t mean in a race we can’t catch people, we’ve lost the start and we get that, but the reality is our club is going to be here for a very, very, very long time and what we do from now going forward is important that we affect that future in a really positive way.

“The lads did need time, they do need time. For anyone who has lived in hotels and moved into houses and moved their family around, it’s not easy. It’s not as easy as people think.

“But all that has gone now and the reality is that we are starting to look like we’re getting on our feet, and long may that continue.”

Photo: TWTD

itk92 added 11:27 - Oct 22 How dare you ask for time for a full set of humans to settle in to a club and area Paul!? How dare we not be top in October!?!? Seriously guys some of you just need to actually read what he's saying and surpport the process, do not follow the football surpporting trend, Ipswich has always been a club built on stable foundations, do not forget who u are!!
12

legoman added 12:06 - Oct 22 My biggest fear at the mo is how well we will perform without Morsy in the team. Hope someone is learning from him.
0

ronnyd added 12:44 - Oct 22 legoman, I'm sure that there will be others able to step up to the plate when Sam is unavailable.
3

Blogs 295 bloggers

Ipswich Town Polls