Assistant manager Chris Hutchings says Town's current stand-in skipper Carlos Edwards is never going to lose his attacking instincts despite establishing himself as Town’s first-choice right-back this season. Hutchings says a wing-back role would probably suit the veteran former Sunderland, Luton and Wrexham man, who has played much of his career in midfield.

Paul Jewell’s deputy, a full-back with Chelsea, Huddersfield, Walsall, Rotherham and weekend opponents Brighton during his playing days, says people ask a lot of players in that role these days: “We want everything [from full-backs], don’t we? Any defender, you want them to defend first, anything after that is a bonus.

“Carlos has been converted into a bit more of a right-back and he’s never going to lose his attacking instincts because that’s how he was brought up.

“Probably a wing-back would be his most preferred role, but he’s settled into playing right-back and he’s cemented that place.”

He says the Trinidadian is still working on some aspects of playing the position: “At times defensively he could be better, he knows that, we’re constantly on to him and working at it in the drills that we’re doing.

“But sometimes when you’re a forward-thinking player, you just switch off or you drift into places where as an attacking player you normally drift into and you give yourself a little bit of a hard task in recovering. But because he’s got pace, pace covers a multitude of sins.”

Now 33 Edwards is showing few signs of age with Hutchings impressed with his athleticism: “He glides, doesn’t he? He doesn’t seem to fight in his running. He’s very easy on the eye and covers the ground. He works very hard in training and he’s a good athlete.”

The summer of 2009 signing from Sunderland is hoping to win the offer of a new contract with his current terms up at the end of the season.

After Saturday’s victory over Cardiff, in which Edwards captained the side and created Michael Chopra’s goal, manager Paul Jewell joked: “He’ll be telling me he’s got a 100% record [as captain] and he’s won the toss twice, so he thinks he’s going to get a new deal because of that!”

When Jewell and Hutchings took over at Town just over a year ago former Blues skipper Jason De Vos told TWTD how much time the pair spent working on defensive drills during his time playing for them at Wigan.

Hutchings admits that it’s been disappointing that defending has been Town’s Achilles’ heel since they've been at Portman Road, at least until the recent back-to-back clean sheets: “We pride ourselves on being really very tight. We haven’t really had a settled team or back four, the permutations have changed constantly, which doesn’t help. That has been very frustrating.

“But you’ve got to believe in what you’re doing and you’ve got to keep doing it. The players have got to buy into it and they’ve got to keep doing it.

“If we can cut our mistakes out at the back, we can score more than the opposition and we're going to win games."

Story syndicated from TWTD.co.uk

Photo: Action Images

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