Town boss Paul Jewell didn’t appear overly impressed to be told that summer signing Jay Emmanuel-Thomas is set to sing on a track by rapper Chipmunk, his one-time Arsenal academy team-mate. The Blues manager feels the 20-year-old, who he believes has exceptional potential, needs to concentrate on getting himself fit and into the team.
Jewell says he’ll have a chat with the striker or midfielder regarding his musical ambitions: "It’s something I might just go and pull him for a word about this morning. I don’t know about it.
"Jay Emmanuel-Thomas needs to concentrate on his football, that’s what he gets paid to do and that’s what I’ll be having a word with him about.
"He can’t be doing that well on the pitch because he’s not in the team,” he added.
Emmanuel-Thomas is one of a number of Town players on Twitter, something else Jewell says he has little time for: "I don’t know who these players think they are, to be honest.
"Who gives a toss what Jay Emmanuel-Thomas or Paul Jewell are doing? I’ve only got a million followers! I want them to concentrate on what’s going on on the pitch, certainly young players.”
But the Blues boss says it’s important to remember that Emmanuel-Thomas is still young and believes he’s a big talent who has the ability to go a long way: "When you look at him, he’s such a big unit.
"We’ve bought potential there, there’s no doubt about it. He can do things in training and in matches that no one else can.”
Jewell admits that so far the man known as JET has not made much of an impact in his five starts and six sub appearances, aside from his two goals, with his fitness having been an issue in his first few months at the club: "He’s frustrates you because he looks lazy, not meaning he is. He’s not fit, he’s come from Arsenal and he hasn’t had a pre-season like the lads have had here.
"It’s always difficult to catch up after pre-season. When I say he’s got potential, he can do anything he wants, he can be anything he wants to be, or he can just drift away. It’s entirely up to him.
"He might make more money making records, I don’t know. He frustrates you, there’s no doubt about that.”
Despite this, the Liverpudlian says Emmanuel-Thomas, who cost £1.5 million plus a further £500,000 in additional top-up clauses, is making progress on the training field: "He is improving every day. I think it was a bit of a shock to his system. He’s been at Blackpool, he’s been at Doncaster and he’s been at Cardiff, all on loan, and he’s always had the comfort blanket of going back to the Arsenal.
"He hasn’t got that any more, this is his team. I bought him to go into the team, but he wasn’t fit enough to go into the team. He’s shown flashes, he’s shown bits and pieces but he hasn’t shown enough consistently, but you do get that with young players.
"He’s making a name for himself by doing records and stuff like that. I want him to make a name for himself on the football pitch and I will be having a word with him about that.”
The Londoner spent much of pre-season with Arsenal’s reserves scoring hat-tricks in not overly taxing matches such as a 9-0 thrashing of Hastings. Jewell says this didn’t give him the same preparation as the rest of the Town squad: "Certainly every player that was here had a tough pre-season and I believe in the benefits of that.
"He wasn’t fit, I was surprised what shape he was in. He wasn’t up to the speed, the tempo of the way we want to play, the way we want to train, but sometimes that happens with players.
"When we did fitness runs, he was tailing off. Now he’s tailing off not so much, he is getting better. I certainly don’t want to vilify the lad, but mentally and physically he’s found it a bit tougher than he thought it would be.”
Even if the former England U19 international doesn’t make his Town breakthrough during this campaign, Jewell is confident that he will do so further along the line: "Whatever happens this season he will be better for it next season.
"He has got fantastic ability, I’m not going to liken him to Adel Taarabt at QPR but just as he can do things that no one in the QPR team can do, JET can do stuff that no one in our team does. And yet at times he finds the simple things difficult.
"When you look at him, he looks a man mountain, but he’s only 20. He’s got a lot to learn and a lot of growing up to do.”
Story syndicated from TWTD.co.uk