Town boss Kieran McKenna says new signings Jack Clarke and Dara O’Shea could both feature for the first time in the Carabao Cup tie at AFC Wimbledon on Wednesday.

The pair became the Blues’ 10th and 11th arrivals of the summer after Clarke’s move from Sunderland was confirmed on Saturday evening and O’Shea’s switch was completed on Sunday.

McKenna says both players have good experiences in the game despite their relatively young ages and believes the duo will prove to be excellent additions to the squad.

“Both are available,” he said ahead of the visit to Plough Lane. “Both very different type of players, of course, but both two really good additions and we feel both are at good ages with vast football experience.

“Dara with experience in the Premier League with two different clubs and have played a lot of games now for a young age, and Jack with a lot of different experiences for his age, an early breakthrough, a move to a big Premier League club, has had different loan moves and has had a fantastic spell at Sunderland over the last couple of years.

“Both strengthen us in different areas of the pitch, Dara for his age will bring a lot of experience and leadership to our backline, and of course is really strong in his duels and his pace as well.

“And Jack, we know and everyone has seen over the last couple of years, has got some real quality in the final third. He carries the ball well, he's had goals and assists from the left-hand side and gives us some qualities that we don't have.

“So two really good additions, two good characters and two boys with a good level of football experience but also young and hungry to really establish themselves in the Premier League this year and have good seasons.”

Winger Clarke joined the Blues on a five-year contract for an initial £15 million having contributed 24 goals and 15 assists across the last two Championship seasons for the Wearsiders.

McKenna says the 23-year-old is ready for the step-up to the Premier League after the former England youth international struggled during a move to Tottenham Hotspur five years ago.

He said: “Yeah, I think so, that's the idea of the move. From his point of view, he's broken through at a really young age, had a move to a big club really early on in his career but wasn't able to get the game time that he would have needed to establish himself, so he's had different loan moves and different experiences playing under lots of different managers in lots of different positions and really developed himself.

“I think he's shown over the last couple of years at Sunderland, that at Championship level he's a really impactful forward player and can be a threat to any team at that level. We believe that he can make the step up and be an impact at this level and he certainly believes that in himself.

“We feel that this is a good team for him to do that in, he's come in with so many players in the group who are in the same boat and want to show themselves in the Premier League, they want to show that they can play and compete at this level.

“Some of them have had a little bit of exposure, some a little bit more and some of them this is their first time at it. But they're all really hungry to impress, to make an impact themselves and most importantly to help the team.

“So he fits right into the group and he's looking forward to getting going now, I think he'll be involved on Wednesday night and I'm sure he'll be involved on Saturday, and he's looking to having an impactful season like the whole group are.”

Central defender O’Shea also joined on a five-year deal over the weekend for an initial fee of £12 million from recently-relegated Burnley and has 61 Premier League appearances to his name across two seasons for the Clarets and for West Bromwich Albion.

The 25-year-old joins a defensive unit that includes Jacob Greaves, Luke Woolfenden, Axel Tuanzebe, Cameron Burgess and George Edmundson, with McKenna confirming that there will be no further additions in that area of the pitch.

“We feel like we're in a strong position across the backline now with the additions that we've made, so we know that certainly that unit is finished and complete now,” he said.

“Dara's a player we've looked at right through the summer and spoke to right through the summer. Again, at a really young age but relative to most of our group has a good level of Premier League experience and top Championship experience and has a lot of leadership qualities that he's shown at his different clubs and at international level.

“We still think he's got room to develop and improve further, he improved as the season went on last season I believe and he's looking to still improve.

“He's at the age, certainly for a centre-half, where you still can make a lot of improvements and we're really glad to have him here and hope that he can make those steps with us.”

Dubliner O’Shea becomes the fifth player eligible for the Republic of Ireland in the Blues squad - Luton forward Chiedozie Ogbene will become the sixth once his signing is confirmed - but McKenna says that is more coincidence than any trend in Town’s recent recruitment or the result of keeper-coach Rene Gilmartin working with the Irish U21 and senior squads.

He said: “Not at all conscious. This summer, Sammie [Szmodics] was the top goalscorer in the Championship and Dara was a young centre-half playing for one of the teams who got relegated from the Premier League but who performed very well.

“The nationality of the player has no interest to us, to be honest. It’s about the quality of the player and quality of the person and we’re happy with what we’ve added in both regards.”

The addition of Clarke in particular highlights the depth that McKenna likes to have in forward areas, with the entire front four often changing during the second halves of matches.

The Blues boss believes it is important to have different players in the squad that he can tailor to specific games, something he has tried to add to the group during his time in charge.

He said: “I think we’ve always looked to do that over the last couple of years, have a balance of profiles within our squad, have different profiles for different positions so that in certain games one players’ strengths might be more pertinent than another player’s strengths and we’ve done that pretty well.

“We’ve also looked at each level, whether it was League One, the Championship or the Premier League and identified the key attributes that were going to be most important for the team at that level. That’s changed a little bit from what was most important two years ago to last year to this season.

“Those things you try and impact your decisions and you try and bring in as many of the right qualities as you can into the group, into the playing squad, and from there then we’ll adapt the system as we go, try and adapt the system to get the best out of the players, that’s how we’ve always built our team, and that’s how we’ll do it this year in general.

“We’ll try and get our players in the slots that they’re most comfortable in, where it allows them to do the things that they like to do most more often and always try and limit their exposure to things that they’re not so comfortable with.

“We feel like we’ve got a lot of different qualities in the squad now, different profiles that will give us good adaptability over the course of the season and adaptability is something that we’ve spoken about as something that’s going to be really important for us.”

A common theme of the Blues’ transfer window so far has been recruitment from the Championship, with eight arrivals coming either directly from Championship sides or signed off the back of success in the second-tier.

McKenna understands the desire for more Premier League experience, but accepted the difficulties faced by newly-promoted sides in being able to attract players who are established in the top flight.

As a result, the Northern Irishman is very pleased with the market the Blues have been operating in and says there is a hunger for players to succeed at the highest level.

“There's a lot of good players in the Championship,” he said. “A lot of players capable of making the step-up, but it's also the reality of the position that we're in.

“I said it earlier in the window, Ipswich Town as a newly-promoted team, we're not going to be in the market for too many really established Premier League players at the peak of their career. So we have to do things a little bit differently, whether that's looking at younger players or more senior players or players from the Championship who we think have got the capability to make a step up.

“We've tried to identify quite a few of those, the benefit of that is we've built a really hungry group with lots of players who haven't established themselves at Premier League level in terms of playing consecutive seasons there and we've got a lot of players who are really keen to do that.

“It makes for a really hungry group, there's a really good spirit in the group and everyone's going into the season with a lot of determination. That's a big benefit, of course it means that we don't have a group that's completely established in the Premier League, but that's not the reality for where we're coming from.

“I'm really happy with how we've built the group and how we'll continue to do that this week.”

He continued: “In our position and reality, that's a really good market for us because you're looking at players who, to get to that level, have proven that they're certainly at the top end of the Championship and have then had experience in the Premier League.

“They will have learned and gained a lot from that experience and would have improved over the course of that season. And most players who drop out of the Premier League are pretty determined to get back there and make sure that, if they get another opportunity at it, they want to stay and impact there. So that's a pretty logical and good market for us and we've looked to make use of that.”

In addition to Clarke and O’Shea, Kalvin Phillips, Jens Cajuste and Conor Townsend could all make their Blues debuts at AFC Wimbledon.

Photos: Matchday Images/ITFC

Suffolkboy added 14:12 - Aug 27 Brims with enthusiasm ! COYB
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BotesdaleBlue added 16:13 - Aug 27 McKenna explains his overall philosphy, his credo and his methodologies with such matter of fact clarity, it is mindblowing at times. No wonder our players genuinely love playing for him and explains why other players looking to join the club, are really drawn in, once they have spoken to him. We are "off the scale" lucky to have this man at our club.
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