Troy Parrott set to take a step down for loan with League One Ipswich

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Tottenham’s 18-year-old academy hot-shot Troy Parrott has now been given a loan move to Suffolk side Ipswich Town, after having his loan deal with Championship club Millwall cut short. Parrott, who failed to hit the back of the net during ten starts and four substitute appearances with the Lions, is said to have agreed to taking a step down to further his development.

The Dublin-born striker, who joined Spurs from his hometown club of Belvedere in the summer of 2017, has started one senior game for Jose Mourinho’s first team, along with three substitute appearances, including his debut against Burnley. His lack of senior goals will increasingly become an issue if he continues to draw blanks with Paul Lambert’s playoff-chasing Tractor Boys. It’s far from an easy gig for Parrott to take, given that there is significant anger and frustration among Ipswich fans over their club’s insistence to keep faith with under-achieving boss, Lambert, who failed to take them back to the Championship at the first time of asking and is floundering in the same manner in 2020/21.

Parrott would be a welcome addition for the Tractor Boys

SOURCE: Photo

Ipswich are currently four points adrift of the playoff places, with a game or two in-hand on sides above them like Sunderland and Charlton. The issue for Town has been their inability to find the back of the net. They’ve scored just 27 goals in 23 league games so far this term. Although this is largely due to injuries to the likes of James Norwood and Kayden Jackson, many fans believe it is also down to a system that does not bring out the best in Ipswich’s forward options, with only Norwood suited to playing the lone striker role.

The addition of Parrott to the Ipswich ranks – until the end of the season – would certainly give the under-fire Lambert greater flexibility in the final third. The 6ft 1" forward can certainly play the central striker role well and enjoys both dropping deep and playing on the shoulder of the last defender. Parrott has made such an impact in the last couple of years that former Republic of Ireland boss Mick McCarthy was happy to hand him his senior debut in an Ireland jersey against New Zealand in November 2019.

Ipswich’s League One season is still scheduled to conclude on 8th May, which means the Blues have no less than 23 fixtures to play in the next three months. With such a congested fixture schedule – something that’s blighting all levels of the sport – Parrott could provide the ‘X Factor’ that Town need to turn their possession-based game into goals.

A reminder of Parrott’s route to Spurs

According to Vincent Butler, the director of football affairs at Parrott’s former Belvedere team in Dublin, “every main club in Britain” had at least one eye on Troy Parrott. It wasn’t until his early teens that Parrott’s “strength, pace and size” developed to augment his excellent technical ability. It was then that he was given the chance to play representative football in the capital, eventually catching the eye of an Everton scout, who invited him to play as a 14-year-old in a tournament in Northern Ireland for the Toffees.

In fact, Parrott went on to bag four goals in an Everton jersey, helping the Academy team to a 5-1 win over Glasgow Rangers. Within days, scouts across the Premier League were straining every sinew to watch Parrott play. Despite contact with Chelsea and Manchester City, as well as Manchester United, Parrott opted to sign for Tottenham’s Under-18s. In fact, he eventually pulled out of a visit to Chelsea’s training ground to sign terms with Spurs.

Butler knows Parrott better than most coaches at Tottenham and he said recently that the only thing that frustrates Parrott is “not playing matches”. Butler said that Parrott would “play three matches a day” if he was allowed. It therefore makes perfect sense for him to be recalled from The New Den and parachuted in at Portman Road, where he can be the focal point of Ipswich’s stuttering promotion bid.

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