Mick McCarthy’s backroom team begins to take shape

The Ipswich Town boss has confirmed that Dave Bowman and Ian Evans – his chief scout and European scout at Wolves – have started working for the club.

The duo were hailed for finding hidden gems such as Matt Jarvis and Michael Kightly at Molineux, with Evans having been McCarthy’s assistant boss with the Republic of Ireland and Sunderland.

Steve McCall – chief scout under Paul Jewell at Portman Road – will continue to work at the club, but scouts Dave Hamilton and Mark Seagraves have departed.

Mccarthy brought his Wolves assistant, Terry Connor, to Ipswich, with Chris Hutchings having immedietely left. And now first team Sean McCarthy has gone too.

“Ian Evans and Dave Bowman will both be joining us,” confirmed McCarthy. “They’re working with me now and that will be official asap.

“We have got a real issue with that because we’ve got so many players on loan that might go back. There are discussions about DJ (Campbell) coming on a permanent move, but who knows if that will happen. When a player does well on loan their value suddenly goes up and that becomes difficult to manage.

“We might have to replace those players and that will mean it’s all hands to the pump with Dave and Taffy (Evans) and Steve McCall. We will be scouring everywhere.”

On Sean McCarthy’s departure, the Blues boss added: “We’ve had my staff come in, myself and Terry (Connor) do the coaching and we probably had a coach too many.

“Mark Kennedy will continue doing the Under-21s. I just didn’t need another first team coach.

“Sean was excellent, he was really good and made our transition into the club really smooth. He was very helpful, professional to the end and a perfect gent.

“Ian will be a European scout for us. England is in Europe though, so is Wales and Scotland and Ireland, but he will travel abroad too. He has a strong network in France and Belgium, Spain as well.”

– Ipswich Town host Nottingham Forest tomorrow night. For full match preview, see tomorrow’s EADT and Ipswich Star.