Oh Spanish has been consistent alright gotta give him that! Been moaning win lose or draw most weeks for three and a half years now!
It does make you wonder the ambition of the club. I mean I'm quite pro Mick, however, if you wind back to 08.09 Jim was given the push in a similar position league table wise to us now. Granted, we had £££££ to spend back then so the new manager was going to be backed unlike now. Does that show we're less ambitious now by keeping Mick? I feel that's a question worth being asked.
There is no direction or ambition from this club and it's starting to reflect by the poor on-field performances and lazy management. There are many reasons why we're the longest-serving club in this division; the lack of spending, the big-money departures of players with cheap replacements, the long contract handed to McCarthy, and just the sheer philosophy of a club that are intent to tread water and reap dividends by persisting with, and increasing, the extortionate tickets. Recent performances and results have not been good enough. In the past, I thought the relative success on the pitch papered over the cracks that this club is being run as a business, and a business that does not give the supporters, or should that be the paying customer, value for money. But now McCarthy is quite content working under these limitations and with the security of that contract, he knows he's guaranteed a big pay-off even if he does 'fail' here. Spanish's protests ultimately stem from frustration, but I believe his criticisms of McCarthy are wide off the mark (worst manager ever, seriously?), but they reflect the growing cynicism that many of us have about the club. The thing is, sack McCarthy or not, the board does not appear to be willing to free up funds. We're going to have to persist with freebies, loanees, and cast-offs for the foreseeable future and, in a division where clubs are rushing to outspend one another, we're naturally finding our level. Yes, money does not guarantee promotion, but it gives you a better shot at it.
Apologies Spanish. Third worse manager, or whatever it was. I agree McCarthy isn't near the top, we've had several more successful managers in our storied history. He'd certainly rank low on entertainment value. Yet, speaking in terms of football achievements and results, I think a season-on-season improvement over three years speaks volumes, as well as reaching the play offs last year. For me, he ranks above the last three managers (Magilton, Keane, and Jewell) pretty comfortably, especially considering he had to fix their mess. I don't think we even finished in the top half of the table with Keane and Jewell in charge, in fact we scrapped against relegation during most of their regimes. I do agree that McCarthy is not an ideal long-term solution. This is not a knee-jerk reaction, but I think it's clear that McCarthy should've been considered a short-term, 'keep him when the results are good' kind of manager. The board's decision to hand him a long-term contract baffled a few of us on here, including myself, and now the performances and, dare I say it, the passion and determination of the team are slowly ebbing away. That contract decision looks naive and counter-productive. I'd personally give McCarthy the rest of the season to sort it (he's earned that much and we've made up a four point play-off deficit before), but we've been playing awful football for a month and a bit now. I just can't see the board willing to stick their neck out, sack McCarthy and shell out the millions required for the compensation. I do hope McCarthy can turn this around on his own accord and recognise the need to play with a bit of creativity and entertainment (as we have in patches under his management), but he just seems too cautious for his own good.
Seriously Neil Warnock!!!??? Do me a favour. I thought everyone was looking for attractive football? They out-Ipswiched us on Saturday. He's done a good job there so far, but is that new manager syndrome? Mick's getting some harsh treatment, no he's not great, has made some bad decisions. But despite all that we are still competing for top 6!!! Imagine how much better it could've been had everyone stayed fit. Yeah we lost to resurgent, sit behind the ball Rotherham by a single goal. Time to get over that and support the team.
With MM in charge i can honestly see attendances really falling next season, which may force ME's hand, fingers crossed! Nuggets, awful football for a month and a bit, i would say quite a bit longer!
Mick was pretty damning in his criticisms over Saturday's match. We have been unlucky with injuries over the last few months and that has not helped, but realistically if we are ever to get back in to the Premiership we will probably need a new manager.
I agree that attendances will drop. We've been hitting 20,000 recently, but that'll steadily fall after that defeat against Rotherham, bar an upturn in form or a significant improvement in the style of football. I hope the defeat to Rotherham will give McCarthy that eye-opener to see that we've got attacking quality on the bench. One of the biggest disappointments for me this campaign has been the underwhelming performances of our strikers. Remember at the start of the season when it looked like we had four brilliant strikers? Daryl Murphy has been nowhere near as influential compared to last season, Pitman started strongly and only seems capable of scoring the odd goal from off the bench, Sears has been wasted out wide but he has failed to hit the target from some decent goalscoring positions, and McGoldrick's been injured again! I agree with Spanish that results have been pretty poor since the turn of 2016, but the on-field performances have been particularly dire recently. The fact that Bart has kept the scoreline respectable in a few games is an embarrassment. Yes, McCarthy has to take a portion of the blame, but I'd also blame our big-name players under-performing, and the board for failing to invest in this squad in January when, once again, we were in a position of relative strength.
For comparison purposes the Manager section of our entry on Wikipedia here https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ipswich_Town_F.C. makes interesting reading in statistic terms.OK win % doesn't tell the full story(all of SBR's games were in the top division for instance) but who would have guessed John Duncan's tenure wasn't the disaster those of us old enough to have experienced it "remember".
Maybe they will drop but under Keane / Jewell they took us from 21.000 to 15,500 or so on a bad week. Under Mick, as Milne pointed out they have actually gone up steadily. Last season was the first in a while season ticket sales went up. They clearly won't next season, we'll lose some partially by the price and with the footy on offer. I'm not going to take into account what people say on TWTD - a lot won't renew early but later over the summer a lot will think " go on lets try one more " footy is a drug and people want it in their life. The footy fan will put up with a lot. Anyway, give me Mick over the last three idiots who have thrown all Evans ££££ down the pan.
Always looking in the past westy, that's gone, get over it and look at the **** that is being dished up now ffs
I just wish Mick would try something different. We haven't got much to lose now, relegation's definitely not happening so we may as well go all guns blazing 'til the end of the season and see where we end up.
Agreed sd but that ain't MM, why not blood a few youngsters like Doz, give them half hour here and there!
The thing is, I can imagine that even if McCarthy does risk it and field a few youngsters, and they don't play well, he'll continue to get stick over on TWTD; only this time people will be saying that 'we were only four points off play-offs in March and now we're throwing it away' etc.
