How Ipswich Town players feel about Marcelino Nunez - Jaden Philogene has revealed it | OneFootball

The Chilean midfielder is already a fans favourite at Portman Road after his summer transfer saga

Ipswich Town ace Jaden Philogene has revealed exactly how the Tractor Boys squad feel about Chilean midfielder, Marcelino Nunez, who was the subject of the Championship's most controversial summer transfer saga.

Indeed, the Tractor Boys lynchpin was recruited from East Anglian rivals, Norwich City, in August as Kieran McKenna looked to complete a rebuilding job at Portman Road following the club's immediate relegation back to the second tier from the Premier League.

Expectation levels had reached a recent high at Portman Road prior to the beginning of the campaign, with many tipping Ipswich for the title when assessing the calibre of players at the Northern Irishman's disposal, despite the high-profile departures of Liam Delap and Omari Hutchinson to Chelsea and Nottingham Forest respectively.

It had been an extremely inconsistent start to the season for Ipswich, who, like their newly-relegated counterparts in the form of Leicester City and Southampton, had failed to put any sort of winning formula together in the opening handful of matches, although there has always been a fear from supporters of fellow promotion and play-off hopefuls that they would eventually begin to flex their muscles and enjoy a strong run of momentum.

Such fortunes are certainly transpiring as the Championship season continues to edge closer to the so-often decisive Christmas and New Year period, with six league games coming thick and fast between now and the FA Cup third round weekend.

Town have now lost just one of their previous 10 second tier outings and have risen into the play-off places as a result, backing up a statement 3-0 success over league leaders, Coventry City, over the weekend with another impressive performance against Stoke City, with Philogene's second-minute stunner proving decisive for the Blues.

As such, the former Aston Villa man would face the media post-match, and whilst the main topic of conversation would revolve around his seventh goal of the season, he also issued a strong compliment to the aforementioned Nunez.

As previously mentioned, Nunez was one of several players recruited as part of a remoulding of Town's squad following relegation, becoming the first player to swap Carrow Road for Portman Road since Andy Marshall in 2001, doing so for £10m.

Unsurprisingly, he would become an immediate 'cult hero' of sorts amongst Ipswich supporters after departing the Canaries, who he scored for in the East Anglian Derby back in April 2024, just weeks before Town secured back-to-back promotions from League One, through the Championship and into the Premier League.

After starting two games for Norwich under the recently dismissed Liam Manning, Nunez has since made 16 league appearances for Ipswich, with a mixture of those coming from either the starting lineup or the substitutes' bench.

His influence and quality has certainly coincided with a major upturn in recent results, though, initially scoring his first two goals for the club in a dominant 4-1 success against Queens Park Rangers on November 1st.

The 33-cap international then returned to the scoresheet with a tidy header from an inswinging Philogene cross in another pivotal success at Hull City last month, as well as posting a further four assists - three of which have come in the past four league games.

The most recent of those was, of course, to supply the £20m January signing with his latest stunner on home turf against his former loan club, with a curling effort inside two minutes leaving Viktor Johansson with no chance.

As such, when asked about the strike, Philogene told the BBC that he and Nunez had been working on such patterns of play in training.

"It's probably my third or second best (of the season)," he claimed.

"We've worked on it in training, he (Nunez) gave me the one two and when it left my foot I didn't know it was going in but I knew it was going to be a good shot."

When asked about Nunez's personality in the squad, Philogene responded: "What a player - he's always smiling and making me smile."

It goes without saying that both Philogene and Nunez have individual qualities that would make them a standout player within many Championship sides in their own right, whilst McKenna has the luxury of being able to utilise both.

The duo have been at the forefront of a recent run which has made many stand up and take notice of the maximum damage Town can inflict when afforded the chances to do so, as well as when their squad is brimming with confidence.

McKenna will hope they are able to recover well enough and have a similar impact against Leicester City at the King Power Stadium on Saturday afternoon as Ipswich look to continue closing the gap between themselves and the automatic promotion places.