I would expect that ME feels responsible for this mess we are in. Before he came we were on the road to recovery, albeit moving very slowly in the right direction. Although, knowing ME is a successful business man I doubt things like responsibilities would come into his decision to sell the club if he decides to give up.
hey warky! very good article i have to admit. below is something i posted on our board in relation to your defeat the other night which sort of points out the same thing as dave. --- i'll tell you exactly what that club needs, and thats a relegation to league one! yes it painful, yes its not very pleasant, but for some clubs its the reality check that supporters, owners and players require to start afresh, get back to basics and rebuild. we NEEDED to be relegated to come back a stronger club and ipswich are another club who need to fall on their sword if they wish to become a force again. i'm not just saying this to get a reaction - i really, really believe its the breath of fresh air that some clubs need. look at the saints - a club very similar to ourselves and ipswich - they had to suffer the humiliation of the drop alongside city (naturally, being our relegation buddies ), but its done them the world of good! i don't believe they will go down - they will finish in their usual slot of mid-table obscurity, but for every passing year they sit in nowhere land, the disease will spread. coventry are the next club with 'relegation to league one' written all over them - they NEED to go down - this is their year to do so. they will come back stronger. it might take them one year like us or it might take them three or four like forest and leeds, but its what they need. i urge ipswich to do likewise, for their own prosperity in the future. its simple. take one step back to go two steps forward --- now i'm not saying for one minute that you want to be relegated. however, coventry, derby to a degree although they've started pretty well, and yourselves are the three clubs who in my opinion could do with taking the step down to take two steps forward approach. of course, it doesn't by any means guarantee you success or even immediate promotion back again, but it does seem to be necessary for certain clubs. you have a proud record of being in the top two divisions for a long time, just as we had, leicester, man city, forest, leeds etc... but it means nothing if you stagnate. just my opinion so i'm sure it shall be dismissed!
My main concerns are the fact that we go for 'proven' players who have had easy careers to date and dont seem to understand the battle and lack hunger. The likes of Leadbitter, JET, Martin have grown up on decent money whilst playing reserve team football that doesnt have any pressure or expectation levels. Under Burley we gave players the chance to step up and prove themselves. Norwich done the same last season and Soton & Brighton seem to be doing the same. The only player (IMO) that came out of Tuesday with a positive mark against his name was Cresswell and guess what - hes the only player picked up from relative obscurity. Hunger, workrate and commitment are all fundamental. If you have skill but not the appetite then you've already lost.
I agree Supers! I hate to admit it but I just can't face another 10 seasons in mid table Championship obscurity. At least relegation will focus our minds and give us fresh impetus in becoming a real force again. Nearly 40 years of supporting my beloved Town has boiled down to this. At least in the Burley nearly years of the mid 1990s we improved year on year and the team that got promoted was a force to be reckoned with. If I make a comparison between the 99/00 side with the current side all I can say is that the 99/00side would absolutely wipe the floor with this present lot! We haven't improved one jot in the last few years as league placings prove. I fear all PJ has done this year is swap around the deck chairs on the titanic! To think we used to dismiss teams like Brighton, Blackpool, Millwall et al and now they have over taken us!
one of the best threads i have read ,well done warky you are a man after my own heart and thoughts we all like our teams to do well but we are realy in a big hole at this moment in time in jewel we trust ,i dont know
"I fear all PJ has done this year is swap around the deck chairs on the titanic!" lovely turn of phrase warky! its difficult to say where ipswich stand at the moment. you 'allegedly' have a very wealthy backer and a manager who is more than capable at this level so relegation shouldn't be regarded as any kind of solution to your problems. however, i don't get the impression you are going to move forwards at any rate of knotts unless something drastic changes - a major shake up of some kind. as i am an outsider (albeit a biased one against your club) but a supporter of a club who has experienced what i have the past three years, had we not gone down the season we did, we would have gone down the following season instead. we were on the slide. things were only ever going to get worse. question is, are ipswich 'on the slide'? i'm not convinced but you have certainly become stale. would a drop down be of benefit to you? tough call. the club i see in our former boots are coventry. a club constantly treading water, they are just waiting for the big wave to drag them under. and drag them under it will, most probably it'll happen this year and believe it or not it will be a massive relief for their fans! the hard work then really begins. assuming they as a club take stock of why it has happened and get back to basics, and fully realise they are justifiably playing at that level, they will begin to win games again and confidence shall return. teams get so used to losing! its like a disease after a while. 'winning is a habit' is so right. as i say, i'm not sure you lot are in a position where you fear for survival because of your owner, but i really don't think it would do anyone at your club, including your fans, any harm long term to have a massive reality check. ok, its easy for us city fans to say 'you live in the past' and its equally easy for you to bite back with 'you've won bugger all', but if you want your club to move forward you simply have to move on and stop looking back. its not a coincidence that so many clubs are going down to league one, building sound foundations and coming back bigger and stronger. its not a coincidence that these teams know which players in the lower leagues are capable of making the grade higher up and therefore get a head start attracting them to their club. its not a coincidence that the teams coming from league one generally play attractive, attacking football with confidence. league one is a grind - but while perhaps in the past it was a graveyard for fallen giants, nowadays its a place to be reborn.
Tractorbhoy puts things across very well in his post. I'm not so sure we really need to take that step backwards if we just change our transfer policy. Relegation to league one normally means you have to start to looking at 'lower standard' players who cost less in fees and wages. Why is it we can't do that now even though we are in a league above. A couple of our best players recently have come from lower down. Walters was one and Cressy really looks the business too. Look on the other side and the 'prem rejects' we have bought really haven't shown us anything. Trouble is though that with ME's money our fans think we should be spending big on players and get all in a huff when we don't. Some of the articles on here recently have been about not spending enough and not moving forward quick enough and now suddenly many are changing their minds and are saying we need to rebuild slowly. A fickle bunch on here who change their views along with the weather.
its a perfectly viable option san diego walters is a great example and your club were always one to bring through players from below - holland, johnson etc. its a tradition of your club which you've lost sight of because of your owners wealth and as a result i believe you have lost your identity as a football club. question is, will a) your club have the ability to find the 'hidden gems' from leagues one and two and b) will your owner and even the fans settle for a couple more years rebuilding from scratch? there doesn't seem to be any kind of plan at your club of how to move forwards. its more a case of throw whatever signings we can make into the team and see what happens. is evans getting itchy feet because from the outside you'd have to say its possible.
The question I put to you San Diego is what would you much rather prefer? Yet another 2 or 3 seasons slogging in the Championship and making precious little head way OR take the step back, rebuild and come back bigger and stronger for the experience? I just can't stomach another 2 or 3 seasons of frustration and struggle to be honest.
don't forget though warky, its not necessarily best to use norwich as an example. think about sheffield wednesday. they find it an enormous struggle to get out of league one! its a very difficult league but its one which is a pleasure if you sort yourselves out. winning games, feeling like the big fish in the little pond etc... it can really help build morale, but its not easy. its very physical below the top 9 or 10 teams and if you were to assume that just cos you are ipswich you'd walk the league you'd end up with egg on your faces! we succeeded where leeds failed - we as a club acknowledged that we were, sadly, a league one club for a reason - we were there on merit. it sounds easy to say it now but it does take some bottle to admit that you aren't good enough for even the second tier! i get the feeling some of your fans would find it harder to adjust and accept this, probably because of your history, and the people who are least likely to accept it will be the ones who never even saw your successes. all i'm saying is that i'm not sure your club are in need of relegation. however, they certainly need an enormous size twelve up their booty by the looks of things!!
We have some decent young players coming through the academy right now. We could throw them into the first team now and see where it takes us. If we manage to survive all well and good and if not at the least they have gained valuable experience. We would not need the journeymen if we decided to create a young hungry team and stuck by them regardless of relegation. We would also have to resist the temptation to sell them when they become useful. We could easily keep them at the club by offering improved contracts the longer they stay with us. Wenger is currently killing Arsenal because he sells his players just when they come of age. He has a great philosophy of bringing youth through the ranks but ends up selling them when they become useful. Joe Wight Coalan Lavery Ronan Murray Luke Hyam are all players we could bring through now.
For most of my football supporting life stretching back to the early 70s, I can always remember every year that we always had something to play for, right up to the end of the season. Be it the league title/Europe/Relegation/Promotion/Play offs. Ever since Royle left, our season has become effectively over by the end of March! Boring! Boring! Boring!
In answer to your question JWM if relegation meant that we were winning the majority of our games and came swiftly back up stronger then I would welcome that. The trouble is that we could drop off the map, lose our investor and never recover, that I would not welcome. Too risky to consider, I would rather we just scouted out better players.
i admire your philosophy san diego but i doubt very much your fellow punters would be too keen on taking that approach! its all about balance - some experience can be useful but you need a freshness and youngsters and players looking to make a name for themselves give a vigour and hunger that is so important.
Yeah, I'm not saying have a team with an average age of 20 but we do have some players who could probably step up now. We haven't had a settled first eleven for ages so it's no surprise the team plays like a bunch of strangers. If we could bring some of the reserves through at the same time they would already know each others game and that would be a bonus. Wickham and Josh Carson knew each other well and knew how the other played, it makes a better team if you know each other a bit. Jack Ainsley's another who should be getting game time ahead of Tommy Smith. The only trouble is letting the kids make mistakes and not getting on their backs, easier said then done when most fans want everything perfect and done today.
There's some very good points in this article but I think we are getting really carried away with the situation atm. I could have understood if we were having these sort of conversations this time last year but not now. Yes we were very poor defensively but attackwise we certainly have improved. IMO we only stayed up last season because of McAuley and Bullard, we have yet to replace them and any club would have struggled to replace players of that quality. Getting these players in takes time and we've already got 8 players in, and looking at the players we've got over the past few years these seem so much better. All this talk of perhaps getting relegated to get the spark back is panic talk, we don't need to get relegated. I feel we finally are in a position to rebuild in the Evans era and yet we are suddenly all doom and gloom when I've been far more disheartened about ITFC in the previous 3 years than I am now and yes I did go to the match on tuesday. It seems that the frustration that was built up under both Magilton and Keane has suddenly come out when Jewell was left with a mess that he is still addressing, it was no way going to be a quick fix. Everyone also seems to be writing off Jewell's signings already and we've only played 3 games from what I saw on tuesday, Chopra looks class, Cresswell looks like the best LB we've had for years, JET has bags of potential, Stockdale is a great goalkeeper and Andrews look pretty solid. Admittedly Bowyer looked poor but we are a team being seriously changed and we still need alot more changes, these things take time. Although I would agree it would be nice to pick up a few more players from lower leagues. JWM like alot of the others have said what happens if we get relegated and go further down the leagues, which is a real possibility. I think Norwich would be playing League 2 football now if they wouldn't of appointed Lambert.
certainly the point i was making is whether you think as a club you may actually benefit from dropping down a league in the long run. no quick fix; no premier league rejects; no talk of big money signings; back to basics and build a team rather than throwing a load of individuals at it. obviously it sounds pretty radical but norwich aren't the only club whom league one football has benefitted. its only hypothetical - you will end up mid-table as usual!
I think we will be upper midtable, which this year I would be pretty happy with aslong as we appear to be going in the right direction which I believe we will under Jewell. The problem with this season is that we were/are in such a mess with poor quality players and lack of numbers, no manager would be able to get us up this season and even if they did I don't think it would be good for us this year. I can see where your coming from in that you've built a "team" over the past few seasons and I believe we can do this without dropping down a division. But if we were to go up this season we would have to shell out on a whole new team again. I would prefer to settle for a decent midtable finish this season and challenge next season for the playoffs. We need a settled team without every couple of year having to rebuild!!!
Good response ITFCPTC I couldn't have put it better myself! The only problem I have as a punter is that I am just so bored of the garbage football at Portman Road.
fair enough but surely signing players such as bowyer and ingimarsson (sp.), loaning a keeper who you won't be able to keep, having i believe a large number of players out of contract once again next summer means that you will probably be rebuilding yet again next season whatever. it doesn't seem very long-term but who knows. anyway, with us not playing till sunday i shall be watching your match against the posh on the telly on saturday so make sure you keep those clowns at the back for one more weekend at least, even if it is for my enjoyment only!!
