Defender Jacob Greaves says he has high expectations for new Town signing Jaden Philogene having worked with the winger at Hull City last season.
Philogene joined the Blues in January for around £20 million from Aston Villa having previously tried to sign him alongside Greaves from the Tigers last summer.
The new recruit started just two league games for Villa in the first half of the season but scored his first Town goal a fortnight ago in the 4-1 victory over Coventry City in the FA Cup.
Existing relationships with Omari Hutchinson and Liam Delap – who also spent last season on loan at the MKM Stadium – at international level have helped Philogene’s settling in process, which Greaves says can only help him hit the heights reached for Hull in the Championship last season.
“It’s been nice to have a familiar face,” he said. “He didn’t take too much bedding in, he’s good friends with Omari and Liam who have played England U21s together so that’s been nice.
“He’s a character and an unbelievable player as well, hopefully Ipswich fans can see the best of him that will hopefully come in the not too distant future because he was a pleasure to play with.
“Also the dirty side of the game – he can run forever, he’s as fit as a fiddle and he’ll get back in for the team and do his defensive duties. That side of the game is sometimes looked past as a winger, but especially in this shape and this team you’ve sometimes got to do that work more than he’d have to do in other teams.
“Hopefully he hits those levels that he hit with me and I’m sure he will, he’s still only young so we’ve definitely got to stick by him.”
Last time out, Town earned a hard-fought point at Villa Park to end a four-match losing run having taken the lead through Delap, only for Ollie Watkins to find a leveller 13 minutes later.
There was no way through a resolute defence thereafter, with the Blues forced to play close to an hour with a man light following Axel Tuanzebe’s dismissal late in the first half.
“He’s probably got a lot of emotions going through his head,” Greaves said of his fellow defender. “It was at his old club which he has good connections with, he’s really well respected there and you saw that pre-game with the amount of people that came over and spoke to him.
“I really like Axel, I think he’s a really great guy and is someone I’ve learned a lot from in terms of the way he trains and lives his life. He’s a good guy and he’ll have been disappointed.
“I don’t want to talk too much about the red card but the first one is probably not a booking and the second one probably is a booking. The ref’s not done us many favours on that booking and we’ve had to defend for 60 minutes with 10-men.
“That was tiring but an enjoyable one as well, we all enjoy the art of defending so to sit in and get a point was nice.
“It’s a harsh sending off in terms of the first one not being a booking so there was that bit about it that the lads showed a bit of empathy towards him.
“You could see in his face that he was gutted he’d been sent off but you can’t do anything about it now, we’ve got to bail him out in terms of getting a point which we did.”
Reflecting further on the performance against Villa, Greaves added: “I really enjoyed it. You can see sometimes you can get sucked in to sitting into a back five.
“Going down to 10-men you can sit in shape and have an onslaught of pressure, which we did but Conor [Townsend] still jumped out to get the winger and we were across in an aggressive back four. Palms [Alex Palmer] made some good saves which was nice.
“I feel like as a backline we moved across the pitch really well and covered each other’s backs nicely. Jens [Cajuste] was all over the pitch, at one point he was running [Marcus] Rashford down the right-wing then getting back into the left-sided centre-mid.
“Omari had a block from a corner where he sprinted across, slid and won the ball. That’s the ethos that we need in this team and we’ve got a bunch of fighters that will give everything for the shirt and hopefully people can see that.”
Without a doubt the standout performer at Villa Park was new goalkeeper Palmer, who was making his Premier League debut having climbed the pyramid with loan spells away from hometown club West Bromwich Albion.
For Greaves and his fellow defenders, having a settled goalkeeper behind the backline can only be a positive after a period of instability with Aro Muric and the now injured Christian Walton.
“He’s been a really nice addition,” Greaves said of Palmer. “He’s chatty and talks a lot, sometimes a bit too much!
“In his debut against Villa he made a lot of top saves, sometimes when you go away to those places that’s what you need from your keeper. Even his kicking as well I thought was excellent. It’s a nice face to have in goal, hopefully he can carry on that form he showed in the Villa game.
“You want confidence running throughout your full team no matter who plays in goal. Obviously the staff made a decision to bring Alex in, fortunately he had a really good game.
“It’s nice that people have come in and have done well because they can help contribute to the team.”
At the age of 24, Greaves is still embarking on his debut season at Premier League level having only made his top flight debut against Liverpool in August.
But it was the reverse fixture against the Reds last month that saw Greaves mark another special moment in his career with his first goal in the Premier League, albeit in a 4-1 defeat.
He said: “You don’t want to be 4-0 down in any game but it was against Liverpool who are probably one of the best teams in the world. We were disappointed that we conceded four goals but on a personal note it was a little bit bittersweet to score at Anfield.
“That has given me even more hunger to try and score more goals this season because the feeling you get from that you can’t explain it.
“It would have been better in an environment where it was to get an equaliser or a winner but that wasn’t the case. I was absolutely delighted to score my first Premier League goal.”
On being an attacking threat, Greaves added: “Especially over last season I contributed a lot more in terms of attacking set pieces, it’s an area of my game I’ve tried to work on a lot. It’s about trying to be aggressive in losing your man and I think I can do that.
“I’ve got a good leap and I think I can be a problem in their box. Also the defending side of set pieces as well, there’s a lot of detail that we take into that and you can probably see that in the games with how dialled in we are. It’s something that I’ve looked to improve in my game and I feel like I have.”
