Derby County must now sign Blackburn Rovers star after Ipswich Town blow | OneFootball

Derby County must now try to sign Blackburn Rovers midfielder Lewis Travis after missing out on Ipswich Town midfielder Sam Morsy.

As John Eustace heads into his first pre-season as Derby County boss, the Rams are attempting to put together a squad that will assert themselves as Championship regulars once again, but they are going to have to make a swift adjustment to their recruitment plans.

It has been reported that the Rams were interested in signing Ipswich Town captain Sam Morsy, but the 33-year-old is now closing in on a move to Kuwait Premier League champions Kuwait SC instead.

Eustace has already made a couple of signings of players that he worked with at previous club Blackburn Rovers this summer, such as Danny Batth and Andreas Weimann, but he must now ensure Derby pursue another Rovers man.

Blackburn club captain Lewis Travis is someone who has been linked with a move to Pride Park this summer, and it is a move that Derby must now ensure comes to pass.

Derby must ensure they now sign Lewis Travis

As first exclusively revealed by the Football League World, it is believed that Derby do hold an interest in Blackburn midfielder Lewis Travis, who worked with Eustace last season.

In the winter transfer window of the 2023/24 campaign, Travis, who came through the academy at Rovers, moved on loan to Ipswich Town and made nine appearances for the Tractor Boys as they eventually gained promotion to the Premier League.

Eustace took charge at Ewood Park a few weeks’ after Travis’ departure and, upon the latter’s return to Ewood Park in the summer of 2024, he was reintegrated into the side in Lancashire.

Having re-established himself as a key man for Eustace at Blackburn, it is no surprise to see the former Birmingham City boss now keen on a reunion with the 27-year-old.

As well as clearly being someone who would fit in well for Eustace given their relationship and Derby’s desire for someone in that position, he would also help lower the age profile of their squad.

County already had one of the oldest squads in the Championship, and that has only become older this summer with their additions of Batth and Weimann thus far, alongside Carlton Morris and Richie O’Donnell.

Travis, an experienced professional for the second-tier and someone, remains someone with a lot left in the tank, and that will be even more enticing for Derby as they must surely look to now build to the medium-to-long-term.

Travis would suit Derby more than Blackburn

It has already been proven that Travis would fit in well to a Eustace style of football and system, and it is also evident that the Rams are keen on a defensive midfielder in his mould.

However, it would also make sense for the player to make the move, with the expectation that Valerian Ismael will now get what he wants at Ewood Park this summer, and that may not suit Travis’ game.

Ismael’s almost ridiculously extreme and direct 3-4-3 system can often leave the midfield being entirely bypassed, so the role of a midfielder in an Ismael side is to be as energetic and mobile as possible in an old school box-to-box fashion.

Whilst Travis isn’t necessarily completely limited in that aspect, he is the archetypal defensive midfielder, more suited to simply sitting in front of a defensive three or four.

That more deliberate and circumspect skillset, matched with an immense reading of the game, makes him more suited to how Derby are likely to play coming up this season, rather than Blackburn, where he has made over 250 appearances.