Ipswich Town defender Jonas Knudsen says he will ‘have to think about my future a bit more’ following last week’s announcement that manager Mick McCarthy will leave the club this summer.
McCarthy signed Knudsen from Esbjerg for around £300k in the summer of 2015, the Danish left-back having been a regular in the team ever since.
The Blues took up an option in Knudsen’s contract to extend his stay until the summer of 2019 back in December.
“I will have to think about my future a bit more because he was a big part of things for me,” said the 25-year-old. “I told him before that I wanted to know what he was going to do.
“It’s not about him only, but he is a big part. I have been very happy to play under him.
“Now maybe I will not sign a new deal because you never know who is going to come in and whether a new manager will like me or not.
“It’s fine. I have a year left and I will always do my best. I will give 100% every single day.
MORE: McCarthy on seeing out his Town contract and ‘nice’ West Brom links
“Of course it is having an affect on what I am thinking about the future. I’ve been very happy to play here, I like to play here every single time, it’s a great club with great fans, but we’ll see. I have a year left and I will do that.
“I haven’t heard anything from anybody. I can’t say anything about signing a new contract because I haven’t heard anything.
“I know people may want me to be on a longer deal, but I haven’t heard anything. That’s how it is.”
He continued: “I’m very happy to live here. Me and my wife are very settled.
“But of course I also have to say that I have ambition. Maybe some of you don’t think that I can do more, but I think myself I can do more.
“I have pout myself into the game and I want to improve all the time.
“How great would it be to take Ipswich up to the Premier League? That would be absolutely brilliant, but you also have to be realistic sometimes.
“If a new manager comes in and wants to sign me and the owner wants to give me a new deal then I am ready to talk because I’m very happy here.
“I also have to hear from them though. Do you know what I mean? The only thing I have heard is them saying they have taken the option. I’m open if they want to talk.”
MORE: ‘We haven’t got our flip-flops on yet’ – Webster
Knudsen, who earned his third cap for Denmark recently and is vying for a place at this summer’s World Cup, was asked if playing in the Premier League was his aim.
“Of course it is,” he said. “I think it should be for everybody. I’m 25 years old and have played here now for three seasons. Of course I want to play up there and I hope I get a chance.
“Maybe I will always be in the Championship, but you have to have ambition and set the bar high. That’s how I work. I want to get in the national team and I want to play in the Premier League.
“As I say, it would be great to do it with Ipswich. That could be great. If I could see ‘ok, we are going to go for that’ then that would suit me nice.”
MORE: ‘Go and get Mowbray’ – Burley’s message to Evans
On McCarthy’s impending exit, he said: “He’s been absolutely brilliant. It was the gaffer who brought me here and I’ve played 118 games under him. I have big thanks to him and TC (Terry Connor) for bringing me to English football and teaching me English football.
“It’s not easy coming over here (from abroad) and you see people that don’t make it, so I owe them a lot.
“I am disappointed that he has to go because he has done very, very much for this club and has built something up.
“But that’s how it is in football and in business. From my point of view I wanted him to stay. Of course I play every week, but I still think he has done a fantastic job. Big, big credit to him.”
He added: “We have six games to go and we have to go out and do our best for the club and definitively for the manager after all the things he has done for us.
MORE: Follow us on Facebook for all the latest Blues news and video
“I think we have a very good squad. And why do we have a very good squad? And why do we have such a good training ground togetherness? That’s down to him.
“We want to give him something back. I think you saw that on Monday (in a 2-2 hopme draw with Millwall). When we went 1-0 down everybody was probably thinking ‘wow, what’s going to happen now?’ But we reacted. We said in the dressing room ‘now we see who we are’ and I think we showed that.
“Okay, we didn’t win the game, but we didn’t fall down and lose by three, four or five. That shows what we are about.”
Comments: Our rules
We want our comments to be a lively and valuable part of our community - a place where readers can debate and engage with the most important local issues. The ability to comment on our stories is a privilege, not a right, however, and that privilege may be withdrawn if it is abused or misused.
Please report any comments that break our rules.
Read the rules here