Town striker Zian Flemming may have arrived at Portman Road to bolster the Blues’ forward line, but the deadline day signing has not always been deployed as a traditional number nine.

With only Emersonn and Chuba Akpom for depth at the top end of the pitch heading into the final day of the summer transfer window, Flemming joined from Burnley for an initial fee of £17 million that was confirmed late into the night.

While his efforts were not enough to prevent the Clarets from dropping back into the Championship last season, the 28-year-old was able to notch an impressive 11 goals in his debut Premier League campaign at Turf Moor.

Flemming spent a large period of his early career playing behind the main striker, including during his first years in English football with Millwall, where he was regularly utilised behind Lions teammate Tom Bradshaw.

It was only at Burnley that Flemming believes he transitioned into fully understanding the role of being an out-and-out centre-forward.

“I mainly played as a number 10,” he said. “A bit of a high number 10, some managers have called me a nine-and-a-half before.

“I’m not the [Julio] Enciso-type of number 10, I would be a little bit more of the guy that arrives in the box, gets on the end of crosses and arrives late.

“That’s also what I did at Millwall, and then I signed for Burnley and Scott Parker wanted to use me as a striker, which I had played before every now and again in the earlier days of my career.

“I had to transition from being a number 10 to a striker. In my first season at Burnley, I was still a number 10 or a nine-and-a-half playing as a striker. Throughout last season in the Premier League, I felt like I actually have become a striker, rather than just playing as a striker.

“I learned a lot playing in that position. I’ve always approached it in a way where I don’t want to lock myself into a striker or number 10. Now I play as a striker, I'm going to learn as much as possible in this position. If there is another manager or the same manager that wants me to use me as a number 10 again, all the stuff I learned as a number nine I can still use as a number 10.

“I’ve tried to put everything in my backpack with great help from Henrik [Jensen], one of the assistant coaches at Burnley, looking a lot into box movement and all that stuff.

“I feel like I'm a number nine, but again I don’t want to lock myself too much because if this manager or another manager wants to use me as a 10, I’ll be happy to do it.”

There is no doubt as to the role Flemming has been signed to play at Portman Road, with the summer arrival immediately handed the number nine shirt to compete with Emersonn for a spot in Gary O’Neil’s starting XI.

Town’s new frontman, who made his debut as a sub against Liverpool on Friday, insists he feels no pressure in being the man to fill the void after the shirt was left vacant in the early weeks of the season following George Hirst’s departure.

He quipped: “Not really. That’s available and that’s the position that they’re signing me for, so it would be weird for me not to take it.

“I’m not going to be afraid to take it because there would be extra pressure. I don’t even see my own number on the back of my shirt, do I? I’m just playing football.”

The Blues finished the transfer window with a total of 14 arrivals, with Flemming joining goalkeepers Kjell Scherpen and Kayne van Oevelen in hailing from the Netherlands.

Along with midfielder Azor Matusiwa, Town have a healthy Dutch contingent to continue their history of players to cross the North Sea after the likes of Arnold Mühren, Frans Thijssen, Romeo Zondervan, Fabian Wilnis and Martijn Reuser did so to great effect.

Flemming knows the success those players brought to Suffolk and hopes he can be the latest to write Dutch history at Portman Road and be spoken about in a similar breath.

“The history, I knew it was a big club,” he said. “I knew that back in the day it was a massively successful club in Europe.

“I didn’t really know about the Dutch connection until all of this was going on. I could tell that all the Ipswich people that I met started straight away talking about that. I can tell that they’ve not forgotten about them players.

“We’ve got three of us now in here [with Van Oevelen out on loan], so hopefully in 30, 40 or 50 years they can remember us a little bit, even though we might need to win a few trophies to do that because that’s what they did.”

A call-up to the Netherlands national team would be a huge honour that Flemming is yet to fulfil, and one he feels is long overdue.

He said: “I’ve mentioned last year in an interview, I don’t really want to get this whole conversation going again. But I scored the most goals in the Premier League of any Dutch player last year, so I expected to be called up already. We’ll see what happens after.

“I’m not really into chucking numbers out there and trying to chase them. I obviously want to score as many goals as possible, but that’s not the number that you’re looking for.

“I try to approach it always to just score my next goal as soon as possible. All my eyes are on my first goal and my first goal would be so nice. In the evening once you’ve scored it, I want to be on two goals now and hopefully that goes quickly and you get to the bigger numbers.”

Photo: TWTD