That just reiterates my point - we cant have a dodgy defence and play at a fortress (they dont go together) and peopl cant praise CE for his brilliant play this year yet still moan about our absymal defence - he is afterall a 1/4 of it. As you know I disagree with your dislike of Jewell but agree we need to be able to play well without going goal mad if we are to progress next season. There are going to be games when we will have to accept a 0-0 or a clean sheet may be required and that definately will not happen with the current system. As you say we deserve to be in mid table obscurity this season as we are so damn inconsistant but when we are good we are very good and it does give me signs of encouragement. These signs however, go nowhere near proving that we currently deserve to do well next season. It is progress but nothing more and nothing less and I think that stupid headlines like 'fortress' are just building the more nieve fans up to believe we are a lot better than we actually are. It reminds me of the early days of 'operation premiership' The club made fans believe they were about to 'buy a bentley' when we were actually 'a ford' which felt like a 'knackered austin allegro' due to the initial hype and the let down from it.
After what we have seen over the last 12 months with Jewell at the helm. What makes you think that he is the right man to get us promoted?
Its a hard one to answer JWM. As I have said many times this season I feel the players deserve a lot more of our angst than what they got and the manager less of it. They have both made failings this season. The amount of individual errors far outweigh the amount of managerial errors so far. Our keeper situation is a joke and although there are signs of promise in the defence ( I think Smith has played well and Cresswell looks generally good ) but we need to improve and if Delaney ever gets near a Town start next season i will be far from impressed. We need a 'solid' formation to go with our all out attacking one and hopefully 1 or 2 additions at the back will go some way towards addressing that. BUT we are exciting when going forward, we look likely to score and in JET and Martin, when on form, we have two very dangerous match winners. I have slated him at the start of the season but we appear to have handled Chopra's situation well and it appears to be paying off. Do I guarantee Jewell will get us up? - No but I would rather let him continue rather than start the whole progress over again. I feel happy with Jewell and have seen encouraging signs. We have work to do but it isnt a unimaginable task to tighten up our defence and thinking we are mid table currently (after a very indifferent season)than there is more cause for optimism than pessimism from me
^ What he said Our current run of form would have us in the top six if maintained throughout a whole season. If we can finish strongly, new players will be slightly easier to attract than if we just forget the remainding games and let the season peter out.
I have to say I am with JWM on this one, Jewell does not give me the feeling that he is a man who always knows what he is doing and him getting us into the premiership would amaze me. His summer signings were for the major part mistakes, he signed players by his own admission recently that were the wrong type of signings. In this time he failed & still has failed to sort out our CB issues & keeper problem. The team selections/formation for both our good runs this season have been stumbled upon/forced on him, the 2nd more so and I feel if we had not had so many injuries he may have continued with those players until possibly he may have lost his job.! Saying all this he does seemed to have learnt from his mistakes, he has stood by most of the players that have come in, although it is disappointing that both Hyam & Carson are not in the squad of late, I appreciate 5 subs only does make this difficult to manage. I guess what I am trying to say is that for me his mistakes so far outweigh his positives, hopefully he will learn from them & will make some decent signings this summer.
Some good points on here. The only player for me who has been consistent this year has been Cresswell and probably deserves the player of the season award tbh!! Jewell has made many mistakes this but I have been willing to give him the benefit of the doubt mainly because I think those mistakes were made more likely with the situation we found ourselves in after Keane left and also just the sheer number of individual errors which no manager can acount for. I thought he did a great job at wigan, he always talks sense and after Keane watching Jewell's style of management and football this football is a breath of fresh air in terms of entertainment at least. I think the majority of managers as a fan you are always going to question alot of their decisions, any Ipswich manager I can remember fans have done so but there are certain managers who make less questionable decisions and I am willing to give them the benefit of the doubt. We all want the best manager at a club but with the current climate of sacking managers how we can get ahead of our rivals is by backing a IMO decent manager, success isn't going to come over night, certainly not sustainable success anyway, especially after the previous regime. Whether Jewell is the man to take us up, who knows but I think aslong as I see visible improvement season upon season I don't mind. I was always worried that who ever took over from Keane was as such going to have a poisen chalice because of the mess he left and also I felt the fans were very patient with Keane, so whoever took over I think the patience was going to run out alot quicker!! For next season I am worried by our expectations again, ME has come out and basically said we will be challenging for promotion next season and after our run of form this season alot of fans seem to expect the same. For me next season I hope we are in and around the playoffs, for me that would be a great season, aslong as we improve. I don't want us to try(a bit like this season) to put a team quickly together to try and get to the premierleague, we need to evolve as a team. For me next season will be to early. I think the season after will be more likely and even that might be too soon. But I hope we improve year on year and build steadily, I think we have strayed to far away from this ethos in the Evans era!! Tractorbhoy I have to agree with you on everything getting sensationalised by some fans and the press, who just overreact at every result and make their opinion of a manager or a player from the last 2 games or at face value rather than stepping back, looking at the situation as a whole and making a measured opinion. For example Clegg hasn't been criticised recently, although some of the criticism was deserved it makes me think whenever a club isn't doing well people have to aim it at someone, even sometimes they don't know why they are doing it. I'm pretty sure in the past 10 years anyone who has been in a position of power, Sheepshanks, Clegg, Royle, Magilton, Keane, Evans have all been criticised by fans who now often see alot of these in a better light since they left the club.
You would expect us to be scoring reguarly via JET / Murphy at the back post but whenever we have the ball on the wings neither are making a run at the full back, JET especially needs to pull his finger out in this respect. With regards to Leadboots, my opinions were confirmed last night. He's only now performing because he is trying to attract offers from elsewhere. When he got sent off the majority of fans at PR stood and applauded for his performance and he gave no acknowledgement whatsoever, this and past actions show he clearly doesn't care for the club. I fully agree with ptcs comments about the content of this board. It's good to have a joke but I mainly come on here for football debate and it's been a while since I've seen one on here. This thread has been a good read, lets keep it up.
