Need to make changes for the next game. Hirst through the middle, maybe Delap on the left instead of Clarke or Jaden. Burgess in for Greaves. 3 at the back, Johnson right wing back to make overlap runs. Davis or Townsend left wing back. 1 holding midfielder (Cajuste) .............................Palmer Johnson..O'Shea..Woolf..Burg..Townsend/Davis.............................Cajuste .....Hutch.............. Enciso.............Delap ...............................Hirst
While McKenna obviously has a say on transfers, it’s Mark Ashton and the recruitment team that has a bigger involvement. £110 odd million is a massive financial spend, but it’s mostly spread across four or five years as we’ve “done a Chelsea”. Those players will have to step up next season. We weren’t in the market for experienced Premier League players. Not many players are going to take a chance on us, when most pundits had us tipped to go straight back down and we were playing third division football two years ago. Even if we really wanted to spend bigger, FFP would’ve stopped us (in theory, although as you said before, clubs like Forest and Everton have got away with it with only a minimal points deduction). To me, the summer business always looked like we had half an eye on the future and preparing for the likely scenario of going straight back down. Regardless, more of those players had to step up and improve the squad - doesn’t look like they have. If they don’t perform next season getting us back up, then we’ll have taken a massive step backwards.
Probably our best team from the players fit and available. Definitely agree dropping Greaves. Maybe put Jack Clarke on the left, he’s got a few assists this season and think Hirst would relish getting on the end of some of his crosses. Delap’s been off the pace for weeks now, whether McKenna says he’s resting Delap or dropping him, Hirst deserves a few starts.
Just hope the missus comes back from work in a good mood woth no headache, could do with cheering up.
Yeah we looked stronger with Townsend. The Delap / Hirst selection is the one that really leaves me baffled. Hirst always delivers and brings others into the game.
A stupid six minutes really cost us,all over by half time.Agree we need to ring the changes for the remaining games so KMc can sort out from those who'll be staying what represents our best 11.Time for Hirst to start??
Not that simple....if no one leaves, then we have an excellent chance, but if a few decide to jump ship a.d their egos get the better of them, then I'm not so sure
Ok, I understand emotions are a bit raw but 1 thing about getting back to back promotions, we had no European scouting network so the only player we brought in from abroad was Cajuste. That meant that our transfer policy was buying the better championship players. There have been some successes and some failures. The 2 most problem positions have been goalkeeper (Muric was a disaster) and CM - we needed Phillips to be 7/8 out of 10 every week and he has been nowhere near that. Would love to keep Cajuste for the championship but don’t think there’s any chance of that. For the remainder of the season, we need to play the players are going to be with us next season in the championship
As the next poster said, not that simple. We did it once at Norwich. Our team was completely out of their depth in the top flight. I would say that Teemu Pukki was our only player that was genuinely Premiership class. If I am being honest Ipswich look a little better at coping than us but that only lasts for a bit of the game when your players seem to run out of steam. Then again we spent nothing. A hundred million doesn't go far in the top flight.
A hundred million doesn't go far in the Premier League. However, the parachute payments and the inevitable money from clubs cherry picking the better players goes a hell of a long way to Ipswich being the financial Championship bully boys this summer.
Whilst I get the various points about McKennas selections this season and transfer business, they are all valid and I agree i.e. dropping many players from last season who are in form too quickly (aka Burgess, Woolfenden, Chaplin Broadhead etc.), the signing of Muric, challenges with CM and probably on the the biggest things for me is the lack of fluency this season compared to previous ones. However we had a squad made up of players from League 1 (albeit too good for that level) who McKenna got every ounce of out of last season. We needed to strengthen as we had a small squad, we spent big and bigger than most PL teams this season however when you look at most PL clubs benches they have more on the bench in terms of value spent than we spent over the summer. As we've seen with managers over our history when we've brought in large amounts of new players that first season it rarely works (McKenna could've done better to intergrate some of them more slowly). Then the injuries, we've had loads, I don't have the expertise to know whether that's our own fault, bad luck or a bit of both but they certainly have had an impact. If Liverpool had the same injuries we've had this season to their team they'd be nowhere near the title. Injuries make a huge difference.
Next season is not a given. McKenna getting promoted with us again is not a given. But this time we’ve gone up cold, having lost our data capabilities owned by Brighton, had to invest heavily in the stadium to bring it up to Prem standards and everyone at the club has gained experience. We are building a state of the art training ground and we’ve signed young talent so over the next five to ten years we will be better positioned than anyone to become a sustainable top flight club. Most of the money that we’ve spent on players came from investment, not from TV and prize money and we have a much lower wage bill than the likes of Leeds, Leicester and Southampton. It’s a massive turnaround in vision in just a few years. Clubs like Norwich City are Leeds United are nowhere near us.
My thoughts. We knew the scale of the challenge we faced to even reach equal footing and we've been running into very strong headwinds from the very start. It doesn't make accepting relegation any easier but nor does it necessarily excuse some of the missteps made along the way i always return to the first 45 minutes of the season, toe to toe with Liverpool and winning lots of plaudits. Then it all started going wrong. Burns getting injured exposed how shallow our squad and gameplans were, tidal wave of reinforcements arrived, most without a preseason and McKenna - for one reason or another - didn't feel able to blood them slowly. I don't understand why he didn't make them earn there place - we essentially signed Hull FC and they didn't even get to the playoffs while we won automatic. I genuinely don't recall us naming an unchanged lineup. And I think on too many occasions "the plan" has come before the game in front of us. Reinforcements in January disrupted any semblance of rhythm we had started to build, and players still haven't developed any real partnerships. We've seen throughout McKennas tenure his system takes a while to learn Injuries haven't helped. (I forgot about Ogbene until reading this thread - RW is a cursed position) and as I opened with it was always trying to bridge a chasm When we'd raced ahead of our engineers (Strained metaphor, but I'm referring to our 1st team outstripping the development of the background infrastructure) Just hope we're learning lessons which will mean it won't be 22years to bounce back
I think 2025 has been very disappointing so far. For the first part of the season it looked like we were generally improving and learning. If anything it feels like we've gone backwards...apart from the GK position. It doesn't feel like we've seen any areas of improvement and we look naive, too many young players who make the wrong decision and are learning in the toughest league.
Mick Mills after the match yesterday questioned our recruitment policy,should we have gambled on young talent as opposed to more experienced Premiership players?Whether we could have got four or five established players for our outlay is debatable. With hindsight my main concern was that we didn't start the Season with experienced back-up for our main striker as opposed to an injury-prone Hirst and completely untried Al Hamadi.A Kiefer Moore type would have been a much better prospect.
