'Go and score the goals to make your dad proud' - Cook's message as Pigott returns

Town’s No.9 has missed his side’s last two games following the sad death of his father prior to the draw at Cambridge, with Paul Cook and the Ipswich staff giving him the time and space he needs to deal with his loss.

But he’s back in contention now, with Cook challenging his striker to go and score the goals which would make his dad proud.

“For anyone to go through what Joe’s been going through is tough, so it’s very much over to what Joe wants to do around that,” said Cook, who also recently lost his father.

Joe Pigott is on loan at Portsmouth this season (Image: (C) Copyright Stephen Waller)

“Joe and his father were very, very close. He watched him play all the time and was very proud of his son.

“My thing to Joe would be to get back on the pitch as soon as you can and score the goals which would make his dad so happy and proud. Joe will be in the squad tomorrow and hopefully we can see that at Portman Road.”

Cook wouldn’t be drawn on the fitness of striker James Norwood, who hasn’t made the bench in any of the last three games, while also hinting he may opt to name an unchanged side following Tuesday night’s impressive 4-0 win at Portsmouth.

“With the greatest respect, I don’t want to answer every question about individual players, I don’t see that as a press conference, if that’s OK,” he said, when asked about Norwood. “Obviously all the managers watch each other’s press conferences about teams, squads etc.

“I don’t mind answering the question about Joe, which is fine, but individual questions about other players, I’m going to shy away from.

“The three games in a week is always a challenge because you’re damned if you do and you’re damned if you don’t, especially after the way we beat Doncaster and then travelled to Accrington (and lost),” Cook continued.

“As a manager, I really enjoyed watching us on Tuesday night so you never want to be deemed as a tinker man in any shape or form. Will we put that same team out? Let’s watch this space.”

When asked how important daily fitness work is at Town’s Playford Road training base, Cook used a player in red hot scoring form as his example.

“If you look at Sone Aluko, there’s an example of a lad who’s probably taken time to get up to match fitness,” Cook said of a forward who has three goals in his last two outings.

“We were 10 or 11 games in and we’d only seen glimpses of him in games. But if you’ve watched the last two games, he’s been absolutely fantastic for us.

“There has been a lot of work put in by Andy Rolls (director of performance) and the performance guys behind the scenes. We put a squad together quite late, with players signing late, and we’re now reaping the benefits of all the fitness work we do on a daily basis.

“For modern day footballers we all watch the Premier League and we all except the players there are the elite level of performance. That’s in terms of physicality and output.

Joe Pigott celebrates his first half goal at Gillingham (Image: PAGEPIX LTD 07976935738)

“But that doesn’t stop lads in League One, League Two or the Championship working as hard to be as fit as they can be. For any time now, if you dip out through fitness issues, it’s not good.

“We try our best to do the same things daily so our good habits get us home. The reality is, if you have good habits then good things will happen.”