And so it begins....

I see that Lambert is getting his excuses in early!

https://www.twtd.co.uk/ipswich-town...ut-money-its-a-different-project/page:2/#comm

Its the same old garbage year in and year out! No money, no ambition, patch up and mend. I wonder what it will have to take for the "Happy Clappers" to finally realise that we as a once proud Football Club are in serious decline? A 0-0 against Rochdale on a freezing cold night in January? This pre-season is no different to the ones before! Relying on Freebies, loans and kids will not get us promoted in any any league.

FFS Evans show some serious ambition for once in your life or sell up and fock off!

 

That's the spirit JWM

 

I suspect that we'll try and blag it til Christmas and see how we're doing before possibly spending in January. If it's not quite working, then I reckon we'll spend a bit in January, when the market values are over inflated and with limited players to sign

 

In all seriousness, how many poor results do we think Paul Lambert can withstand until talks of the sack begins to gain wider credibility with a majority of the fanbase? In most of the press conferences this summer, Lambert seems to be continuously downplaying a top two finish. The club appears quite comfortable to embrace the 'low-budget outsider' look that we could conceivably get away with in the Championship, but which clearly doesn't apply in League One. We will have one of the biggest wage budgets in this division, we've got some of the best facilities in the division, and we are widely tipped for a realistic shot at automatic promotion by bookies and national media publications.

I stand by my opinion that Paul Lambert was an underwhelming appointment when he joined the club, and he's arguably only in the job because a large portion of the fanbase have willingly swallowed his honeyed PR game. The poor results and slight improvement in performances from last season would not have been enough for some big name clubs that found themselves in our situation back in 2018/19. I initially feared that season would be as bad as it would get for us, as we were last in the third tier back in the mid 50s, but the current lack of investment in a squad that was clearly not good enough for the Championship does not bode well.

 

It's now so blatantly obvious that the idea of bringing so many young players through to the first team is not for the benefit of improving Ipswich Town FC but to facilitate a stock farm to line ME's pockets when he sells these young players on and no doubt a cut going to PL. Sad, sad times indeed.

 

Might have rose tinted glasses on but I don’t think we’re too far away from having a squad that can challenge towards the top of league 1. Definitely need a couple of full backs (especially left) and a centre back and maybe a target man up front

 

Evans needs to “**** or get off the pot” in my opinion

 

I think we are absolutely miles away in defence and attack at this point in time.

If anything happens to Kayden Jackson then we're in trouble.

 

Don’t you mean James Norwood? If Lambert is going to go one up front, then surely it’s Norwood who’s starting?

 

New season, same old bollocks, Evans out !

 

If Lambert is going one up again, we'll be in League Two next year.

However, I was being sarcastic.

 

On the contrary, I believe that going one up will allow us to use more of the higher quality attacking midfielders that we have in the squad, which is easily our strongest area. There will be times when we will have to go for two strikers up top, so we've got to have a squad and a manager capable of being versatile, but I think the strong competition in our attacking midfield areas means we've got to use as many as possible. I think players such as Judge, Bishop, Huws, Edwards, Lankester, Nolan, and Dozzell are better compared to a fairly shallow pool of strikers, currently consisting of just Norwood, Jackson, a couple of kids, and a half-fit Sears who will miss the first four to five months of the season.

 

Didn't work for us at all last season, why should it next?

 

Formations don’t win or lose games.............players not executing their individual roles in said formation will lose a game or just not being good enough or not being coached effectively in said formation. IMO.

 

That goes without saying. But it’s the same manager and the same players. The same midfielders who didn’t create chances or weigh in with goals last year, apart from the one real danger man Edwards who didn’t play much.

 

So you don't think players will improve in a system with further training, and that they become more confident playing a certain style of football, with time? You don't think a fresh start and the chance to build confidence and momentum has an impact? I'd agree some of the players we have in the squad are not good enough, and I'm sure some of our youth players are naturally over-rated by elements of our fanbase. However, the idea that because we've been relegated means the manager and players are automatically not good enough and are unable to make a one-striker-up-top system work, a formation widely used in the game these days, is pretty misguided in my opinion. Relegated teams to League One have a fairly good chance of coming straight back up - if they play to their strengths. This squad's main strength, currently, is a strong selection of attacking midfielders for a third division level.

 

What examples are there of a successful side playing with one goal scorer?

 

What examples are there of a successful side playing with one striker? Is that a serious question? In the Championship last season alone, Norwich City - a side that finished as champions and the highest scorers in the division - played with one recognised striker, Teemu Pukki, who scored 29 goals. They only had one other player who scored double figures in the league, he was a winger. Four of the six sides that finished in the top six played a system with one striker up top (Villa, Derby, and Leeds being the others). The other two played with two up front, but in a 3-5-2 system with wing-backs - a formation we'd struggle to make work with our lack of quality and options in defence.

This is ignoring the fact that effectively most top-level sides play with one striker up top, and have done for years. For example, the likes of Manchester City, Barcelona, Real Madrid, Bayern Munich, PSG, Liverpool, and Spurs all play with one recognised striker. 4-4-2 is dead. 3-5-2 is a workable alternative, but as I said, I don't think we currently have the quality in defence, good enough full backs, and most importantly two consistent goalscorers with Sears out until November and Harrison, who at least has a scoring record at League One, sold off.

 

Apart from those examples what examples are there?

 

Spurs Academy in the EFL Trophy then, that’ll be interesting!