Full on “getting the old gang back together” mode! It would be nice to get a range of opinions and voices on here, for what is arguably the most important summer in the club’s recent history.
I’m not sure that will be that much movement in the summer. Definitely need to reduce the squad size but cutting out the dead wood but don’t think that many players will be coming in. Maybe a striker, a right back & centre back?
Weighty my dear old thing, welcome back, we did miss you, and so nice to have you back amongst us diehards, as we plummet to depths of unknown Saturdays. But let's not be put off with places like Blackpool, Southend, Plymouth, Fleetwood to explore and look forward to sunning ourselves on the beaches of League 1! Worse things have happened!
Cheers Gaffer hope your well. As the song goes....’follow the town.............up or down’ not been much up for the last few years.
Us oldies are lucky we can actually remember some ups.My nephew,god bless him,is 15 and follows Town home and away and he’s never known the remotest of good times!
What still annoys me about our relegation was the speed at which we went from a being hard to beat and good enough to nick enough points to stay up to rock bottom. basically on account of our inability to score any goals. we don't haemorrhage goals, we just don't score any. So what really annoys me even more is how we sold our strikers in a single stroke and seeing them sail away into the sunset as we drop off the map; McGoldrick is flying at Sheffield United. I don't want to rehash the whole sorry story of our decline and bad transfer decisions since MM left but it was all so avoidable. I don't care who sold who, who wanted X and shot of Y or who wanted money from sales to pay for his summer holidays. it was avoidable and its cost us dear. the one thing we had when Mick left was a decent set of strikers. why on earth did we have to **** around with that area. rhetorical question. I Made my feelings clear about selling waghorn via my other log in name (seems im not alone in having no idea what my password is and had to create another account; bit random which one my phone seems to 'remember' and let me in on...). I always said wed go down once the strikers left and the crap we replaced them with. scoring goals is the hardest thing to do in football and it was the one thing we had some decent quality in that area. and we contrived to **** it up.
We robbed Derby @ £5m for Waghorn and Garner is not all that. McGoldrick didn’t contribute much either although letting his contract run down was daft. This alone is not the cause of our demise, it’s just one small piece of the relegation jigsaw. The fact of the matter is that after our first win @ 12 games Town were in touch with the rest of the league and NINE other sides had conceded at least as many or more goals. The decision was made to sack Hurst and then we stopped being competitive in games until February.
I think that losing our top five goal scorers last season, and failing to adequately replace them, is a big factor in our relegation. Arguably the biggest. We've scored 33 goals in the league this season, McGoldrick and Waghorn combined have only ten less! Obviously there are several factors in our relegation, but if you take out the top five scorers from any team, and hire the calibre of replacements that we have with our budget, then you're asking for trouble.
Two words give us the reason why, Evans and cash, because he knows nothing about football he saw a way to make millions at a stroke, he had already done this with Webster and had made another million from the lad who went to Man City so all we had to do was not get relegated and it was a sound business plan. That went well then.
Not the biggest in my view - our goalscoring ratio up to Swansea was not incredible by any means but was 0.92 goals per game, since then it has been 0.69 goals per game. We added more talent in the January window and retained the talent we already had, so this proves it can't just be because of striking talent at the club. Goalscoring is only one aspect of the game and our lack of goalscoring is not simply because of players' abilities. It's also because of chance creation and chopping and changing the forward line so often. Edwards who is our biggest goal threat was absent for a large chunk of the season for no good reason whatsoever. We have failed to keep goal, failed to defend, failed to pass the ball, failed to create chances, failed to take chances. Where those forwards could have made a difference is those fine margins that help to build momentum and confidence and radically alter the course of your season but we could have achieved that with the players we had if so many other aspects had not been shoddy. For causation, you can go back to letting Adam Webster, Tommy Smith and Christophe Berra leave or letting Woolfenden go out on loan just as much as those forwards and we can add so many other names - Moore, Marriott, Wickham, Walters, McAuley, Rhodes, Cresswell, Mings - to those. Let's not kid ourselves, we have sold a very average forward for £5m and a lousy one for a million odd quid and when you compare that to losing Daryl Murphy for £4m it really doesn't even begin to explain why we have been relegated.
Piss poor running of the club - cash and all other aspects - for a devastating period of time that I just hope is improving now that Evans says he is getting his hands dirty. Regarding the Man City lad, this goes all the way back to Clegg's time and not prioritising the Academy, not showing those kids that Ipswich is the best place for their development. By the time Man City are in for him and he has no reason to be at Town there's nothing we can do. "That went well then" - no four words better sum up the last ten years at Ipswich Town Football Club!
When you look back over the last ten years. We have done so much silly stupid **** so often, never mind League One - our rightful place should really be in the Isles of Scilly Football League.
Fair enough, each to their own. Scoring goals has been an issue (23rd lowest in the league for goals scored) and keeping them out has also been an issue (22nd most goals conceded this season). Ultimately, the state of the squad and the disparity between all the money we’ve raised by player sales / cutting the wage budget versus the money spent in the market and the decreasing wage bill is down to Marcus Evans. His lack of spending and investment in this squad was always going to catch up with him. Based on his words and the ‘philosophy’ heading into this summer (focusing on youth and giving the academy boys a try) implies to me that he still has not learned that lesson. I’d argue the lack of goals is the more worrying concern because we’ve increasingly had more possession, been creating more chances, and are getting more shots in games compared to the first half of the season. In most of those spates of 1-1 draws we’ve had lately (and there have been several of them); it hasn’t been poor defence that has cost us getting all three points, but a lack of taking our chances and getting the crucial winner. I get that Sears, Harrison, and Keane have been affected by injuries at times under Lambert, but it’s a real area of concern for me and I think we ideally need two good strikers this summer. But I take the point about the defence, and it’s a drum I’ve also been banging over the course of the season. Kenlock and Emmanuel need credible competition for their places, and I still have doubts over Kenlock’s ability, even in League One. Having Woolfenden back should be a boost and Nsiala can hopefully replicate his League One form from last season, but we need another option there, particularly with Chambers on the decline and Collins unlikely to sign permanently. We’ve got talent in midfield – but with Chalobah returning to Chelsea, I feel we really need a deep-lying player like him, who has the vision and passing ability to get moves started. Skuse doesn’t offer that, and arguably never has. Downes doesn’t look like he has the capability for that in his locker. So, having somebody with those qualities would be a big boost next season, easier said than done of course. Bishop, Lankester, Nolan, Edwards, and Judge should step up to the challenge in League One and, if Lambert reverts to a diamond formation with two up top, than those players should flourish, providing provide plenty of competition for one another.
Goalscoring is a big problem but it's not all about calibre of striker - I go back to those first handful of games - the way we were set up meant that when Jackson was playing he was out wide trying to find nobody in the box and we've even had Harrison playing at left wing back at one stage. To be fair to Lambert by the Autumn the problem starts to be compounded by everyone's confidence being shot to bits and a flood of injuries. In February / March we finally started creating adequate chances but it's far too little too late and perhaps we don't have the rub of the green - it's what happens when you're down and out and it's a world away from McGoldrick taking his chances in a quality, free flowing side. By the time we have our act together I'm sure any defence is rubbing their hands together, but having our act together is short lived as we lose our own belief again. Right now the confidence of almost everyone must be shot to bits and that's as big a challenge over the summer as getting the right players in.
