He is perhaps the perfect example of our season.. Looked good for 80 minutes, but was at fault for the 2nd goal and could have done better for the third.. Which is the reason he is playing for us and not Everton (or someone better) but his good work is undone (in my opinion anyway) by his constant gifting of gilt edged chances as he's cost us probably half a dozen goals this season (and as many if not more points) He is the team's "water carrier" he's decent at what he does, but has always needed someone more technically proficient next to him... Which Mick refused to do and both Hurst & Lambert seem to have carried that on... (not helped by constant injuries to Bishop, Dozzell & Huws) Who's Adayemi? This is applicable to any Ipswich Town side since 2008
Regarding a clinical striker, we did have Murphys 1 amazing season. Pace on the wings - both not our players but Fraser & Lawrence spring to mind. Regarding an earlier posters query about Chambers interview, I’ve seen it and he seems to be basically accusing certain players of downing tools, not caring about the club and not willing to put their bodies in the line. Not sure if I agree with all of that, players have not played well this season but I think that’s because of the standard of players they are rather than not trying hard enough. Hopefully good enough for league 1
I don't think Chambers will have said it for a laugh - we're not around the place day in day out but with the modern day player - I'd imagine with a few it doesn't hurt them one jot. There will be a couple in there for sure. No idea who, but some.
At the risk of being accused of arguing with everything, I think this quality thing is a bit of a red herring. It's been an excuse wheeled out to explain a defeat by every single manager since Joe Royle. You only have to look at Chelsea's form as a stark example of how quality is only part of the equation in football, their recent history going back several seasons, in fact. For 60 minutes the lads showed a level of performance we have rarely seen this season. To a man they played like absolute warriors. If they showed that regularly the goals would come and the defensive mistakes would be far less frequent. Fear, embarrassment, anxiety, frustration, lack of confidence, lack of belief, lack of fitness, discord with teammates, trying too hard, putting on a front, problems at home, gambling, alcohol and drug abuse, poor diet, playing out of position, being complacent, poor tactics. These are all reasons for a lack of performance aside from a lack of quality or a lack of effort. As club captain, Chambo should know better than these comments, he's as much a part of the problem as everybody else.
I’d rather it hadn’t come out to be honest, and fair enough for picking that up given my viewpoint on things internal. However, for Chambers to say that really shows he’s not impressed by the character of someone. Going to assume Quaner could be the man in question, not in the 18 v Norwich. When you loan bucket tonnes of players as both Hurst / Lambert have you get this.
The trouble is, when your owner has a grip on the purse strings, the manager is limited to the status quo or, at best, adding a few loans.
Oh I don’t mind loans being used at all - the way Mick brought in quality for the season we otherwise wouldn’t have had. Lambert can hardly get quality ones in January to be fair. How Hurst used the loan market was not how I like to see it used.
Every loan player we have brought in has taken a huge chunk of the wage bill and the place of a young Ipswich Town player who can either nail down a place in the squad or move on for transfer profit. The result of all those loans has been zero net benefit to the club. Competing in the transfer market and paying wages has been an issue, but the loan approach has only hindered us further.
Erm I think it's safe to say most Ipswich fans are happy to have loans in if they improve the quality. Why would you say to Lawrence / Fraser / Maitland Niles / Celina = ' no sorry ta, your miles better than what we have, and you'd improve us no ends, but we don't want you? ' you wouldn't unless you were mad. It's a sad state of where we're at that we need to use the loan market to improve the squad. Of course, we don't have to use a single loanee and I get what you're saying about our own players / development and sales - however I'd rather take talent who can improve us for a season when possible.
Oh agree - quality is only a certain element. 14/15 season is the best example we have of completely lacking ' quality ' and it working. We had a midfield of Tabb / Anderson / Bru / Skuse + Bishop for goodness sake, you could say massively lacking in quality. However, we had team spirit, a game plan, no injuries and it clicked. Of course Murphy had the season of his life, we were incredibly organised and a bloody pain to play against. How often you can get a season without quality so to speak and everything else falling into place is open to debate. Very unlikely. Agree with you regarding players being warriors v Norwich for a good chunk of it - but there begs a question - why aren't they fighting most games? They didn't at Accrington - and from what I've read / heard / they haven't in many other fixtures either. First and foremost you require a bunch of players who want to play for the badge. Not sure our current lot really give a toss, or certainly a good few of them.
Because Westy, they are only going to fight fires and improve the squad for the duration of their loan. At the end of the season, all you've done is spent a lot of money on wages and denied experience to and devalued your own young players and salaried players. Over time - over three years, five years, ten years, that's an enormous net loss to the quality of the squad and finances.
Westy,I’m not often in total agreement with what you say,but your comments about our lack of fight this Season are spot on.If we’d shown half the spirit we did against the Budgies I don’t think we’d be where we are now.
I get your point, but to counter that.. We have had Williams, Fraser, AMN, Lawrence, Celina all come in to give us a little quality in wide areas.. At that time, we signed a fair few youngsters in the same position (Henshall, Dylan Connolly to name two) who, along with our own youngsters have practically disappeared from the professional game since.. So were hardly going to shine for the first team if they were given a chance.. The issue is clearly identifying decent options that can be signed permanently and Mick went along the short term route of Hunt, Varney, Feeney, Pringle, Carayol etc.
Yep,we’re forever trading down and filling in gaps with makeshift loans rather than properly trying to build a coherent team.
Where are Williams, Fraser, Maitland-Niles, Lawrence, Celina now? Their wages and place in the side could have been used to sign our own players and give our young talent experience, to develop, rather than using our team to develop players for Premier League clubs with zero net benefit to our club.
Which young players are you referring to? I accept that the money could/should have been saved to spend on some permanent signings (better than Pringle, Feeney etc.) but to say they blocked "Young Talent" is a bit fanciful as there hasn't been any decent wide midfielders or wingers come through the club since Josh Carson, and he quickly tumbled down the leagues and out of the professional game after he left us.
Right now we have 35 U23 and U18 players plus Dozzell, Bishop, Woolfy, Downes, Rowe (and Morris if he wasn't injured) all missing out on opportunities and experience. Not only does that lack of opportunity and experience hamper their chances of making it as a top footballer, but it puts off other youngsters coming in or staying. Why would you come to Town when Norwich just up the road are promoting their youngsters? And this doesn't just apply to academy players either but signings we've made rotting on the bench. If over 10 years not a single capable winger comes through the academy, you only have a couple of gaps to fill and you have all that wasted loan money additional to spend on bringing in a few top attacking players. Even if Evans had never spent a penny more, we would be in a much stronger position if we'd kept loans to the essential one or two per season. Then there is the morale issue - you have got our own academy players not getting a game, our own players rotting on the bench and loanees who are there to further their careers but have no stake in the club. All round it just makes no sense to develop a team and it's a net loss to quality over time.
