Ian Craney has become the latest addition to Paul Cook's backroom team at Ipswich Town.


Craney had the role of kitman at Wigan but joins the Blues as a first team coach and, linking up with Cook again, will work alongside Francis Jeffers and Gary Roberts - all four coaches hailing from Liverpool.

The 38-year-old former Everton youth midfielder lined up for a number of clubs in his career, including Swansea, Huddersfield and Accrington.

“I’m really excited about the opportunity I have been given here,” Craney told the club website.

“I obviously know Paul and worked with him at Wigan and when he offered me the chance to come to a club the size of Ipswich, I couldn’t wait to get down here.

“It’s a big club with big ambitions and shouldn’t be in this league and I’m looking forward to being involved and trying to move the club on.”

An article on Accrington Stanley's website, published in April last year, states that Craney was working in his family bakery before he linked up with Cook in 2019.

He said: “I absolutely love my job. You get the banter with the players and staff, working with people you have played with and keeping involved on the football side. I started my coaching badges but a kitman suits me better."

Cook had wanted to be reunited with his long-term assistant manager Leam Richardson at Portman Road, but that wasn't possible after Richardson recently took the Wigan manager's job on a full-time basis after the Latics avoided relegation from League One.

Town's current kitman is long-serving staff member and former keeper James Pullen.

Cook has already let go first team coach Matt Gill, goalkeeper coach Jimmy Walker and opposition analyst Gerard Nash, while it appears that Kieron Dyer is set to return to his role as Under-23s boss after taking on more first team duties during the final weeks of the 2020/21 season.

Jeffers. 40, joins having been coaching at Everton's academy since 2016, most recently assisting David Unsworth with their U23s.

Roberts, 37, is set to take his coaching badges this summer having only just hung up his boots to once again be reunited with Cook, the Blues boss having signed him at previous clubs Chesterfield, Portsmouth and Wigan.