Mick McCarthy ready to make his move for Sylvan Ebanks-Blake

The 27-year-old – twice a Golden Boot winner in the Championship – worked under McCarthy at Wolves, the club he was released by in the summer following their relegation to League One.

Having broken his leg and suffered ankle ligament damage back in April, the powerful front man has just returned to full training after undergoing rehab at his former employers – as is their contractual duty – and could sign for someone immediately given he is a free agent.

“I think he’s progressing okay and is probably at the stage where he’s looking for a club,” revealed the Blues boss, who has kept in constant contact with the player by phone.

“I spoke to him when I was up at (ex Wolves player) Jody Craddock’s testimonial about four weeks ago. I think in January certainly he’ll be looking for a club. There will be plenty of clubs looking to get him and I’ll be one of them.”

McCarthy said recently that he expected there to be queue of Championship clubs interested in snapping up the former Manchester United trainee, with both Leicester City and Nottingham Forest linked in recent weeks.

The Blues boss will hoping his relationship with the player will give him an edge though, as it has already done when it came to bringing his former Wolves players Christophe Berra and Stephen Hunt to Portman Road.

After failing to break into Manchester United’s team as a youngster, Ebanks-Blake scored 23 goals for Plymouth in the second tier before McCarthy paid £1.5m for his services in January 2008. It proved to be a brilliant piece of business, the striker scoring 12 goals in the second half of that season and then firing Wolves to the top-flight with 25 goals the following season.

He may have struggled to make the step up to the Premier League, scoring just 12 times in three seasons, but showed he is still a deadly Championship marksman last season by scoring 15 goals – all the more impressive given injuries and the fact his side were battling the drop.