Northern Ireland Manager Nigel Worthington has said he is delighted by the news that David Healy has left Premier League side Sunderland on loan to Ipswich Town.
Healy made the move on Monday as the transfer window drew to a close.
"David is probably going to have more of a chance of playing first team football", Worthington told UTV Sport.
"He's played for Roy Keane before and he knows what he is going into, so hopefully he will get that chance to play first team football.
"It's good for him and obviously good for ourselves. What it will do for David is it will make him physically sharper and mentally shaper from the point of view of playing games of football."
Worthington said Healy's agent contacted him prior to the signing.
"I've said all along that you need to be playing regularly to keep your sharpness up to date. I'm delighted that David has gone out on loan and it should be good for him all the way round," he told UTV.
Worthington, who said he will be able to "nip along and see David and Gareth McAuley" at Ipswich to "see how they are doing and see them first hand", believes Healy will perform well for the club.
"They've struggled to pick up points and that's partially through not scoring enough goals so hopefully the "little man" can go in there and do what he's good at and get scoring right away."
Speaking about Healy's role with Northern Ireland Worthington went on to say: "David has always added a great strength to Northern Ireland. It's just unfortunate that in recent times he hasn't played the football to keep his sharpness there. Hopefully now that he's going to be playing first team football again, that will return and along with that will come the sharpness around the goal."
Worthington will be in Poland on Saturday ahead of the draw for the Euro 2012 draw.
"I'm looking forward to that and people have asked me who would I like? It's one of those situations where it's out of your hands and you take who you get and you get on with it, so I'm looking forward to see who we get."
Worthington will meet the squad at the end of February ahead of Northern Ireland's away friendly with Albania on 3 March.
© UTV News