And while I'm posting about Ipswich being in the mire and having a lack of imagination... JET scores a stunner for his fifth of the season, complete and utter pisstake.
All the games that i've seen this season we have looked a decent side... been a little unlucky but thats all, personally i think we have brought decent players in to the club and i'm not really fussed about the price tag......its not about the price tag..
I don't think there's much wrong with our playing staff. I think our set up, ethos and running of the club are not trickling down to motivation or success on the pitch or the terraces. It all starts from the top and if the top is rotten then you'll get nowhere and doesn't matter how much individuals sweat.
Having said that, we're well, well short of other teams in attack and have been since Joe Royle's side.
A very interesting discussion. A total lack of ambition or a realistic appreciation of where we are? I saw my first match of the season last Saturday and there were two very average sides out there except that Birmingham were a lot more average than Ipswich, if that was mathematically possible. As everyone has commented Cresswell showed his class, as did Burke for Birmingham. One of the reasons we didn't score was I thought because Nouble had an ineffective game and when he was replaced by Murphy another goal seemed more of a possibility. At least we had desire to win which Birmingham didn't seem to show for large sections of the game. Will we challenge for a play off place this season? Unlikely on that showing , but it is only one match and we could improve considerably as the season progresses. It is just that i wouldn't mortgage my house on Town making the playoffs, and i can appreciate ME's reluctance to do the same with his business. An interesting stat. Since we reached the top tier of English football 1n 1961 we have spent 26 seasons in the top tier and 26 in the second.. So this is season 27 down there and having supported Town through everyone of those seasons I share the frustration and I am starting to lose the belief we will ever get there. But I know when next season comes round the hope will reappear.
An excellent well thought out and reasoned post SP and You deserve some Rep! I watched my first Town game in the 1973/74 season so you go back even further than me!
Nakhi Wells from Bradford would have been an excellent signing and would have shown some imagination and ambition. Lee Tomlin from Peterborough would be another great signing. Instead we shall have to make do and pray that we can score enough goals to keep us afloat! What a lamentable state we have got ourselves into. And just to think back to the times when we all remembered how bad things were under John Duncan!
Good discussion on here boys. I and many others said it'd take a few years to get back to where we were before Keane arrived, so if we all believed what we preached we've got one or 2 more seasons to go which seems about right to me. I agree though it is very frustrating, which is why I was so vermently annoyed whilst Keane was here because that was the moment we needed to shine and yes many managers have failed with money but he didn't just fail he ruined us, I know Jewell was also a poor appointment but I wouldn't say he ruined us!!! We've got to try and draw a line and forget about that missed opportunity and accept where we are now, we have a manager with a safe pair of hands that will be able to get us competing in this league whilst we sort out our affairs. Perhaps that's the plan, have a manager whos adept at getting the best out of limited players for a couple of seasons the part ways (him probably to Ireland) and we push on with a young ambitious manager from there to really build the club up in his own image. Agree JWM it certainly has been a chore to go to PR for the past few seasons and with ticket prices how they are I'm surprised we still get 17,000!! That is my and has been my biggest gripe with the club over the past few years (apart from maybe the appointment of Keane). I like what the club are starting to do but there are still a few things behind the scenes which really shock me, ticket sales being one of them!! I think this season we are really going for moving toward FFP which is the sensible thing to do. We were doing it last season until we went up **** creek without a paddle, which meant he sanctioned all those loans and then obviously Mick and his bonus, it was needs must by that point and I think we certainly would've been worse off had we been relegated. Now we've got a 'safer' pair of hands we trying to run the club properly and perhaps other clubs might be going for it a bit more but that's either because they've been better run and are now baring fruit (i.e Derby) or clubs are still trying to live beyond their means which will hopefully mean we'll have a head start on them in that aspect.
Have to say I disagree with this, we have fairly average playing staff if not poor playing staff in general but I have been impressed with the players work rate and ethos since Mick has been here. The problem is we're paying for 5 years poor management and are now paying for it but trying to get our house in order, we also have a manager who seems to favour limited players.
I agree whilst you can hardly criticise Mick for his transfer dealing since he's been at the club as he hasn't spent any money, I think if we were clever enough we could've got a bit more creativity or goalscoring threats out there than we got, particularly upfront, I'm talking Murphy and Nouble who I'm sure we could've got better players in. I'd have liked some of the players you mentioned but they are way out of our price range (maybe not wages) we missed out on them before their stock raised. I said last season when DJ went back in January that we should've tried to stump Peterboroughs bid for Dwight Gayle. I think we'd do very well to keep a close eye on their scouting system they seem to find some absolute gems, all quality footballers!!!
Everyone has their views and are entitled to it but the MM 1m bonus keeps coming up and it has been denied by MM himself. Seems a weird idea to me to keep battering the club with an unconfirmed rumour. Personally, I dont like the ME reign and havent for 4 or 5 years but it seems strange to me, that people have had such a sudden swing since our position at the end of last season. We basically had the team that half the posters on this board thought were good enough to have a decent season but they are now our players, not loanees. We have also added 1 or 2 others. To me, our style of play hasnt changed much from last season so again no major bone of contention. You wanted a safe and steady manager and that is what we have. It seems like the majority like MM as a manager but also want us to have flair and creativity and those things dont seem to go. His teams have normally been successful but are solid and unspectular in style (the things we were mainly rejoicing last season) On top of that we have played two newly relegated sides and havent been outplayed and a fairly strong Leeds team. Im not saying these teams are unbeatable but Im also not too suprised that we dropped all 3 points against them. The Birmingham result was for me a bitter disappointment. They are having a poor season and have got bigger problems than us. Their goal took a deflection so could be argued as being cruel on us but we cant use that excuse, for me. We need to be picking up points against the likes of them. There are so many strong teams with much stronger squads than us in this league so I never thought the top 6 was a sensible ambition this season but top 12 is a must in my eyes. We need to progress. I cant believe our finances are so bad that we couldnt have made a signing for 500k - 750k but the only real cash we have spent since RK was on JET and Taylor so the spending trajectory has been plummeting floorwards for a few seasons now. (at a guess JM 7-10, Rk 8-10, PJ 3-4 (recouped 9 selling CW) and now MM - 0) At this time last season you were all blaming our lack of spending on the fact we were looking to ship Jewell out. Nobody seemed to look at ME at this point as all eyes were gunning for PJ. PJ deserved to lose his job, no doubt about that but for me it doesnt seem a great period of surprise what has happened this summer.
I don't think you can blame MM - he is clearly cheesed off and fed up. But he would not have been my choice, I would have gone for someone connected to the club and someone who wants to get the ball down and pass. We probably would have ended up in League One but we could have been running away with that division this season. who knows...
The way i look at it is that we are at the beginning of the rebuilding process of the club and to do that we need solid foundations, i.e. the academy, the wage bill down and a squad which is primarily our players with the odd good loan signing to spruse things up. that was what this summer was all about, getting the fundamentals right. We have done that now, and we have done that well, i wouldn't quibble about any player we have brought in (even Alan Lee who to have as a player is virtually costing us nothing) because we have done it within a remarkably tight budget and improved on what we had. Now we need the sparkle, this will probably done by loan signings who's parent clubs will hopefully be picking up most if not all of the wages just to keep them fit. As for performances, we could have quite easily be sitting here on 10 points rather than 4 due to a bit of luck at both ends of the pitch, fellas keep calm.
Look guys, the main point I am making is that if we can only afford to spend £20k on a transfer deal then we are seriously fooked! I agree with TB in as much as spending something like £500k - £1 Million on players should not be a major problem but if it is then we should just all pack up and go home!
It's been like that for years. Roy Keane had a huge spending spree and then Jewell and McCarthy have had virtually no cash.
Hampy it could be said that BFJ had no cash yet managed to get us to the playoffs. Whenever Ipswich has had cash we have ****ed it up, Burley did it, Keane did it, Jewell did it! spending doesn't bring success, all it brings it big headaches, big ego's, big wages.
Actually when Jewell spent money, IMO he usually spent it fairly wisely, it was the free transfers he mucked up on usually. His problem was he tried to get us to run before we could walk, to me he seemed like a 'good time' manager which is reflected by the clubs he was successful at. Really I think Jewell could've done a decent job had he taken over from Jim but the man we needed after Keane was probably McCarthy to stabilise us. But it is certainly a theme, when we get money we do appear to waste it. Burely did it to an extent, Jim was doing a grand job then he got cash to spend and made mistakes, Keane was just **** and the others haven't had quite as much money to spend. Not many managers seem to be that adept and splashing the cash, I'm not convinced Royle would've spent it wisely and I'm not convinced Mick would either, though would agree it would be nice to have a bit more cash to spend. But looking at his time at Wolves he did well initially and got some good buys in but in his last season or so he spent alot of money at Wolves and didn't really improve the squad, so he spent aload of money on keeping the quality of the team the same.
