Pre-Season Testing Bed For Town’s Youth

I am pleased to see that manager Mick mcCarthy has decided to take to Ireland some of the young fringe squad players with promise along for the ride and they should be expected to play some part I would think.

Midfielder Flynn Downes is accompanied by Adam McDonnell, Tristan Nydam, Pat Webber and George Fowler but bizarrely perhaps,there is no place for striker Ben Morris.

Yet this could be because of international commitments, as he has represented England at youth level and is highly regarded. Morris has been capped by England both at Under-17 and Under-18 levels and of course spent a spell on loan at Woking at the back end of last season.

McCarthy will probably field a different team in both halves on Saturday and if this is the case, then more seasoned campaigners like centre back Steven Taylor, will be hoping to impress and perhaps get another short term contract with the club.

There is no doubting his ability or indeed his commitment but the biggest concern has to be incurring more injuries – which like our very own Kevin Beattie, have blighted his career to date.

And because of summer commitments, David McGoldrick, Emyr Huws, Tommy Smith and Andre Dozzell have all missed the trip to Ireland, which is understandable under the circumstances I guess.

In the case of Kieffer Moore he has missed out for entirely different reasons. Since his arrival at Portman Road for just 20,000 pounds from Forest Green, he has struggled so far and the club are looking to put him out on loan and see if he can regain some of his old confidence in front of goal.

The tall 24 year old is interesting a number of clubs apparently and these include Partick Thistle from the Premier League in Scotland, to Rotherham United and Plymouth Argyle.

Whether he will ever make to grade is anyone’s guess but taking a step back is not always such a bad idea.

As for the young pretenders in the squad, we will see if this Irish adventure tells us a little bit more about what kind of future they may have at Ipswich Town football club?


Frank Weston – Editor of Vital Ipswich