Christophe Berra may have already rattled up 27 international caps for Scotland, but the experienced defender recognises that he has his work cut out forcing his way into Ipswich Town’s team.

To that end, he has two main aims – guiding Ipswich into the Premier League, and winning back his place in the Scotland side.

Classy centre-half Berra, reunited with Town boss Mick McCarthy after three-and-a-half years together at Wolves, made his debut in a Town shirt at Colchester on Tuesday night.

The 28-year-old played the second-half of an impressive 3-0 victory, but realises that he will have to bide his time to break up the centre-half partnership of Luke Chambers and Tommy Smith.

Berra, though, is up for the challenge ahead, and predicts a promotion seeking campaign over the next 10 months.

“It’s all about patience for me,” admitted Berra.

“It may have been different, if I had signed two or three weeks ago, because I would have now been a lot sharper.

“My aim is to get in the Ipswich team, by getting fit, and putting in some good performances.

“It’s going to be difficult, because there’s good competition here.

“But I want to push on for promotion with Ipswich and get in the Premier League where everyone wants to be.”

Edinburgh-born Berra, who was training with his local club, Hearts, for a fortnight before his eventual move to Ipswich, also plans long-term to regain his Scotland place.

He continued: “They (McCarthy and Terry Connor) signed me at Wolves in the transfer window (£2.3million in 2009), when we won the Championship.

“I played the last 15 games of the season when they won the league.

“I then played regularly in the Premier League so I’ve had a good experience of that, as well as playing quite a few games for Scotland.

“Eventually, I hope to get back into the Scotland squad.

“I played about 16 or 17 games consecutively, but when I wasn’t playing with Wolves, I kind of dropped out of it for the last couple of games.”