Blackpool midfielder looks forward to facing his former club

The 25-year-old spent three years with the Tractor Boys after making the move from Tottenham Hotspur for a reported £600,000 in 2016.

He made the perfect start to life at Portman Road too, netting an impressive 39-minute hat-trick off the bench in a 4-2 win over Barnsley.

The midfielder was a first-team regular for the first two seasons.

Then, on Boxing Day 2018, he suffered a cruciate ligament injury which ruled him out for more than a year.

This proved to be his final appearance for the club, eventually being released before joining Blackpool prior to the opening of this year’s January transfer window.

“The longer your career goes on, the more likely it is you’re going to play against one of your old teams at some point,” Ward said of today’s reunion with Ipswich.

“It will be nice to see some familiar faces but I think it also gives you an extra incentive to do well. You want to beat them, prove the manager wrong, or things like that.

“I think I’m motivated the same for every game anyway but when you’re on the pitch it might give you that extra bit of drive, we’ll have to see.

“It’s two teams who probably shouldn’t be at this level. Both teams will be wanting to do well this season, so it should be a good game.”

Despite the way it ended, Ward still has positive memories of his time at Ipswich having scored eight times in 98 appearances.

“I had a good start at Ipswich. I came on at half-time on my debut and scored a hat-trick, which was nice,” Ward added.

“I enjoyed my time there. It probably didn’t go the way I thought it was going to end because a new manager came in and I did my ACL fairly early on and that was my last game, which obviously wasn’t the way I wanted it to end.

“I still enjoyed my time there though.”

Ward is now fully focused on the present, looking to continue his good form having started in every league game so far this season.

The former Coventry City and Rotherham United man struggled to make much of an impact when he first arrived at Bloomfield Road, but he’s now enjoying life in a slightly different position – playing in a midfield three alongside Ethan Robson and Keshi Anderson.

“For me, personally, I’m just happy to be back playing now,” he said.

“I was out of the game for a while through injury and there was the Covid situation, so it’s just nice to be back training and playing and feeling good again.”