I have enjoyed reading the valid comments on here, much disappointment with 2025, tinged with a good dose of reality. On the subject of our injuries, on MOTD they said that Nuno had a fully fit squad to choose from. We havnt had that at all season! Imo we have been massively affected by injuries and that's mainly the cause of our lack of understanding & our cohesion on the pitch. Gaffer's thoughts. We know the huge gulf and we’ve come up short, simply not good enough in spite of competing well in most games. I am not getting into the blame game, we can all learn from the experience, including KM. He was fuming apparently and the defense was feeble. He has learnt much and perhaps he struggled tactically, as we certainly lacked the fluency early season. But he's still far better than we'll likely have again. Lets hope he remains, as I doubt relegation will help his CV! Next season is going to be great, I loved the excitement of the Championship and I dont like the Prem even tho it is the top of the sporting tree. Now the pressure is off and the players probably accept their fate, we can play with pride and might see a few wins before the end of the season. I agree that we should now give our likely Champship players a good run. Deffo Burge and Townsend in, and start with Broady. Delap is a mystery, as several flag up. He hasnt thrived here. It wont happen but 2 up front with Hurst could have been electric. So, if is as is likely we will lose Delap, Cajuste & Phillips plus maybe one or two others, the squad will be good enough with our younger players developing. And I hope we dont make 13 new signings in the summer, which was in some ways, our undoing this season. They will need a damn good holiday especially KM. I also expect Mark Ashton to say publicly some encouraging things about the remainder of 24/25, and to reassure us all of the planning & preps for relegation. Lastly, we must overhaul our recruitment policy and staff. We must dip into the overseas market which has served us so well in the past.
This Season has gradually turned to disappointment for me.I started off hopeful that we could defy the odds and somehow survive but the gulf between the Premier League and Championship seems to be increasing.Having said that I've largely enjoyed the ride,seeing world class players and the standard of football has been a big step up. We've not been helped by injuries and KMc's inability to find/field a settled 11. If/when our relegation is confirmed I'll relish a Season in the Championship in the hope we'll have a young,competitive squad who'll win more than they lose and who knows perhaps we'll finally put one over on the Budgies! COYB!!!
Yeah, there were some positive signs in the first half of the season. We competed in games and were unfortunate not to have more points on the board. But the mood has certainly shifted in light of our poor 2025 form. Two points out of the available 30 in 2025 is absolutely awful, whichever way you slice it. The motivation and confidence of players has certainly been tested. Opposition managers have made some tweaks to better beat our style of play and system. The signings have generally underperformed at this level. The players who have put in a consistent stretch of games this season - O’Shea, Cajuste, and Delap - likely won’t be with us next season. The loan players - again, Cajuste aside - haven’t brought enough experience and quality, despite the high finances we must have spent on wages. You could argue we’re in a tough market where good players are reluctant to join a newly promoted side coming off a long hiatus from the top flight. I think that’s a valid point. But as you say Gaffer, we have failed to make the most of the quality and value found in markets abroad. That’s not exclusively a Mark Ashton failing, it’s been pretty prevalent for the last two odd decades. Our predominant limit to the domestic market has meant we’ve only been able to attract top level Championship talent. The players from last season have also been inconsistent, in my opinion. Woolfenden and Burgess have had a good run of games here or there. Morsy in the first half of the season really stepped up. Attacking wise, I think they’ve generally underperformed. Fitness has been a regular struggle for last season’s heroes - I can’t think of any who have been injury free all season, unlike the last couple of years. The intensity and tempo of Premier League games has certainly caught up with our squad. Tiredness and fatigue has contributed towards our injury record, which I agree has been bad and I think we’ve been unfortunate. We’ve missed key players (both starters and depth players). Tuanzebe and Szmodics have been big first team misses. Hirst’s injury at the end of the year put too much pressure on Delap in the absence of a decent third-choice centre-forward. A lot of these players are playing Premier League football for the first time this season, and it definitely shows. McKenna and the coaching staff do need to come in for some criticism. They’re still learning and McKenna has obviously achieved a lot in a short space of time here. But his team selections have been erratic. Decision making in games don’t often pan out. While he’s made some bold and correct decisions dropping big name players through lack of form (club captain Morsy the most notable), he’s also persisted picking big name players who have played poorly in 2025 (Davis, Greaves, Delap etc.). We’ve got a good squad for next season, presuming we retain most of the key players and invest in positions of need, such as central midfield. A lot of our first team has excelled in the Championship. The experience of this season hopefully equips us to handle Premier League football better the next time we go up (ideally next season). I just can’t see us putting a run of form and points needed to stay up this season. It’s been a real depressing slog over the last three months, but that’s the challenge at this level.
Injuries have been a huge factor but I was pleased in generally how we performed in the PL at the end of 2024. We'd competed in most games, been unlucky in others and many of the players were showing they could compete at this level. 2025 has been a disappointment, it doesn't feel like we've progressed our game. The patterns of play which have been there the last few years have been replaced by a disjointed ball hogging forward line. I honestly don't feel we'd be in too different a position had we been able to keep faith with the majority of our first team from last season. I think the majority of signings we've made have been athletically superior to our team last season and probably in the main technically better but we've also lost a lot of our best bits even for example whilst Cajuste is clearly a far better players than Luongo, Luongo used to do such a good job complimenting Morsy in the middle but also would cover extremely well for Davis and also find him with passes...Cajuste doesn't do that. O'Shea has been Mr consistent at the back barely putting a foot wrong, he's strong and barely let's anyone beat him, he's not bad at passing but he's also no Woolfenden on the ball, which makes ball retention far more challenging. Also his his connection with Morsy was clear to see. The signing of Muric looks a huge failure, his decision making was awful and should've been dropped far earlier. Burgess is probably the player I feel for most this season, Newcastle aside where his lack of pace was horribly exposed he's looked pretty solid whenever he's played this season and against Bournemouth probably produced one of if not the best CB performance I've seen in years!! He also has a far better relationship with Davis. Greaves has potential but he reminds me a bit of a better Damien Delaney, has the physical attributes but needs to work on his positional play, he's always half a yard or so out of position even in his better games at the beginning of the season he was out of position for a lot of our goals which put the whole back line off balance. Woolfenden and Burgess in my view are better positionally than O'Shea and Greaves, and also better on the ball. O'Shea and Greaves are however less likely to be outpaced and outmuscled. And however good Delap has been, he's clearly not the finished article and can run down rabbit holes sometimes, we also haven't found the balance uptop with him yet. Hirst was one of McKennas best signings because his positional play unlocked space that hadn't been there with Ladapo upfront where we often looked laboured against deep defences. Delap comes a lot deeper than Hirst rather than getting in behind and the majority of players who have played behind him also like to run from deep which has meant we've had too many players holding onto the ball for too long all of whom occupy similar spaces meaning we're often crowded out. It's really hard because I don't know if it would have made any difference but it feels like too many in form players have been dropped for no reason and given the cost of some of the new signings they haven't shown themselves to be significantly better than those they were brought in to replace.
Watching us this season has often felt laboured a bit like watching England to be fair it felt like that under McKenna before the signings of Luongo, Broadhead and Hirst. It wasn't until those 3 came into the team that things really started clicking and we saw outstanding team performances. Before that McKenna constantly chopped and changed the team and we'd have loads of possession but our play was slow and sideways. A lot of the criticisms we were levelling at him then are similar to those now...inconsistent team selections. He needs to find the right balance of the team. And it's so disappointing we don't see enough of those patterns of play we've seen the last few seasons
Another good summary Nuggets! I came past Ipswich this afternoon on a rare visit, no game today sadly, on way to turnip land, where in rural Norfolk, there is very poor internet.
Spot on ptc. We can all agree that while KM has been outstanding in many respects over last 3 years, he has much to learn and I am sure he will be the better for the Prem experience.
Ha ha! Yes, a varied signal, I am up here at the Pulhams, on non sporting business, staying in a nice inn trying to track down and visit a dear old friend. She was my Dad's secretary on our farm near Halesworth. She always asked me how the Town were doing. Helluva long drive from South coast, 5 hrs ffs, mayhem at Dartford tunnel! Sadly she is very poorly, lives alone, and with dementia is at real risk. Wont answer the door, garbled phone messages, but local Norfolk police are being very helpful, as our the Norwich hospital. If no response after breakfast, police advised contacting ambulance & fire brigade and we break the door down!
