i would say keane set ipswich back four years at least (or more to the point, marcus evans did with his decision making). when he took over they were a play off chasing side, full of young players who played good football. magilton had a poor season where they drifted but they still had a good nucleus. keane came in and turned their club upside down, spent all the cash they had on poor players and alienated just about everyone connected to the suffolk side. when he left, jewell came in and compounded his errors by making more mistakes and frankly, how they've avoided being relegated to league one during that time i will never know. how long has mccarthy been there now? two years maybe? he's begun to claw the club back towards the top of the table, somewhere they already were when keane came in. so i would agree that keane (who orchestrated the slide) put their club back at least four years as although they did better last season, this is the first time they've seriously challenged for promotion or been anywhere near where they were before that. they remind me of us when worthington came in and had to try and sort out the mess bryan hamilton left.
just back to us, as stated yesterday, i don't think we are in a 'keane' scenario, but if this season goes badly i think we will only have one further shot at getting it right or we will likely spend a long time in the doldrums and what a waste of a great opportunity that would be. and so very norwich! i'll repeat a question i asked yesterday: would any other club, other than norwich, both in the football league or even non league (lets say down as low as the 6th tier of the pyramid) have appointed neil adams?