Jack Marriott has been scoring goals for fun at reserve level over a long period of time, but the 19 year old still has only made on appearance for Ipswich.
Many have been questioning how well the young striker has been managed with most believing he would do more for the first team than the likes of Frank Nouble or Alan Lee. Additionally now that Marriott has been loaned out to non-league side Woking who play in the Skrill Premier league, critics believe his development would be better served if he stayed at Ipswich.
I was surprised myself that a team in either League One or League Two had not noticed that Marriott was consistently scoring more than a goal per game against some good reserve team defenders.
Of course it is hard to tell how the non-competitive games match up to lower league fixtures with the reserve teams being mostly composed of youth team members, fringe players and players returning from injury. However, it is safe to assume that although they are not competitive, the reserve games would be just as good as the Skrill Premier League.
It seems highly likely that Mick McCarthy places a lot of importance on the competitive side of football matches. In pre-season the former Wolves boss revealed how he strongly dislikes non-competitive fixtures and he clearly believes that unless there is something at stake you can’t have a proper game of football.
This would explain why he was willing to send his young star to a non-league side instead of leaving him in the reserves, but why did a League One or League Two not make an offer for him?
It seems that a lot of lower league sides were unwilling to give game time to a young striker without actual first team experience and a lot of managers must have an opinion similar to that of Mick McCarthy in that they don’t think much of non-competitive football.
The fact that Marriott’s loan to Woking is only one month long says a lot about the purpose of the move though. He has already scored three goals in his first two appearances and will no doubt have an impressive competitive goal scoring record to add to his CV when his loan finishes.
Once the youngster has that all important first team experience under his belt he can then either make his way into the Ipswich set up with confidence or go back out on loan at a higher level.
It seems that the main purpose of Marriott’s loan is to improve his reputation and test how well he copes outside the comfort zone of the low pressure reserve games.
The Ipswich boss is obviously still very interested in seeing what his hottest prospect can do as he attended the last Woking game to see Marriott score twice.
It wouldn’t surprise me if a number of League Two sides make loan offers for Marriott in January, then McCarthy will have a very difficult decision to make as he may well want to use the in-form striker to boost his play-off chances.
