Spanish I have to say mate that Hoppers has summed it all up brilliantly in his last post! The reality is that we are just an average team which is short of at least 3 quality players! This is not Micks fault as he has been given little money and has relied on freebies to build this squad. You say that he should make tactical changes and yes I would agree with you accept he hasn't got much quality to choose from! Mick has brought stability to the football club after years of instability and I for one want to congratulate him for saving this club! I know you will disagree but I couldn't care less because I will not be lectured by someone who doesn't even go to games! We as a football club aren't an attractive proposition like we once were and believe me we struck it lucky when we managed to persuade someone of his calibre to be our manager.
Good points by hoppers and warky. MM spent about 20k in the summer and given our position currently you'd have to say the free agents, the loans and couple of players he's spent on are doing ok. We've all said since day one of season we're lacking creativity. And we're lacking a consistent scorer. When Dids signed it was said by someone on here he goes in spells. So once again ME needs to throw a few quid at the team and hope MM sees what we are. As you said warky we're not the attractive proposition we once were so we got some work to do to get top players to sign.
JWM - I wont deny I feel a lot more positive about the club now then during the Jewell era, however I'm sure we all said something similar when Jewell saved the club from Keane. So I'd like to know exactly what you're definition of bringing stability is. The backroom changes started before Mick arrived so I imagine he'd have had very little to do with that side of things. Player turnover is debatable, as is the quality of the players - McGoldrick is the only one that stands out as a real positive atm. We do seem less prone to embarrassing results, but as Derby proved we can still collapse at the back. Points wise - in Jewells first full season we were better off at this stage of the season. So what is it that Mick has done that makes him untouchable?
Can somebody please point me in the direction of the statement from Marcus Evans where he says that no money was made available during the summer as i failed to read it or is this just people putting their own slant on things and guessing? Could it not be that MM was pretty happy with his dealings as im sure i actually read that, in July he said he was very happy and no more additions were needed. warky You go to every game do ya? if not shut the **** up as your on here spouting your **** day in day out and im sure you have commented on games that you have not been to. Contradicting ones self again!! Actually there are a few on here that dont go to games due to geographical location, im sure they will be rather insulted by your idiotic comments. If you think that the opinion of those that cant make games is invalid then whats the point of this site you ****ing ******. Now go back in your hole little man!!
Mike At last, somebody that can see the bigger picture. I have not said that im not grateful that MM kept us up but he is very limited, in my opinion and is no hero. No, i dont go to games but it doesn't take a rocket scientist to know that if a team changes its formation and starts to cause you massive problems then you change your formation to counteract that (Derby 2nd half) but MM failed to do this and it cost us!! It doesn't take a brain surgeon to know that if you are losing with 10 mins to go you have to go all out attack and try and get an equaliser (burnley) but MM failed to do this, instead changed midfield. I just dont get this hero status some are giving Mick and as said before, if he wasn't interested in the Irish job why has he not just said that he is not intersted and is happy at Ipswich? It is the easy thing to do and stops all the speculation and bad feeling etc.
Another temper tantrum from Spanish You are just soooo easy to wind up! Never mind I will throw you back now as you're getting to be rather tedious.
I think saying McGoldrick is the only decent player we have is harsh. Cressy/Smith/Berra/Skuse/Tunnicliffe have all stood out to me, and that's already over half the players on the pitch! The team only needs a few more tweaks and a bit more creativity and we will be in the playoff mix. 12 games in, 15 points and sitting comfortably 12th in the table and people are already calling for Micks head?? One more win and we could be top 10! If you expect us to win every game and be fighting for automatic promotion then you need to take your nostalgic hat off and look at our recent history. No one is saying Mick is perfect, if he was then he would be managing a top premiership team but he is still one of the best managers in this division it's FAR too early to want rid of him. I still firmly believe he will take us up, maybe once we are there his lack of tactical knowledge will become a real problem but right now I say we just keep letting him do what he's doing.
Wright, my post wasn't intended to be a Mick-Out post, i was just trying to point out, more to JWM than anybody else, that Mick is far from perfect. I agree its far too early to call for Micks head, on the same page it's also far too early to say we've found our saviour, hence my comparisons to Jewells first full season.
Completely agree Mikey... we seem to have a recurring cycle of new managers being our saviour and then quickly becoming our ruin. As I mentioned to Warkey the other day Jewell has actually won more in his career than Mick... (during a Tisdale related debate) but I understand his admirers... he is a good manager for starters. The inevitably of his departure however is clouding this as it feels like a matter of 'when' and that must surely be having an effect on the players?
Mick saved us last season or have you conveniently forgotten that fact? I'm not saying Mick is perfect but what I am saying is that he deserves our backing and support whilst he is manager of Ipswich Town
Jewell also 'saved us' from Keane, JWM. Ok you can say we were in a worse position when Mick came in, but both managers gave us Play-off form in the saviour seasons Have never withdrawn my backing for MM, i'll be very relieved when the Irish saga comes to a conclusion (despite the speculation I cant see Mick leaving/being let go) just recognise and get frustrated with his limitations that have cost us a number of games.
Let me correct you on one thing, Jewell saved us from a temporary stay of execution, yes he kept us up but by the end of that season it was already going wrong with a poor run of form. Can you imagine who we would be playing now if Jewell was still here. In many ways he was just as bad for this club as keane was, the difference was he was nicer with it.!
And once again warky fails to answer a simple question. Why are you on here warky if you can never answer a question that may just prove you are not always right. I seem to recall ptc saying this to you in the past, grow up!! Oh and this post was not calling for Mick to be sacked, some of you need to read the bloody thread before accusing people of something they never said. I said i would like the ROI to take him as i dont rate him, that is not saying he should be sacked is it now. Tsss some people!!
Agree with Hoppers mainly. There are a few 'tweaks' I think that MM could make but in the main he is doing very well under difficult circumstances. I felt that Jewell was given a bad deal during the ME era which is why i didnt jump on the get him out campaign but he clearly also lacked alot of know how tactically. MM has 95% of what we require. I would ideally like us to be a bit more open but the stability comes first and then we will hopefully grow from there. We are competitive now. We dont look headless. We dont get slaughtered everytime we cross the line. It is a massive jump forward.
this is quite a strange thread looking at it as an outsider. the bickering and polar-opposite views don't make much sense. mick mccarthy is the ronseal of the football management world. you know exactly what you're going to get from him. you get one dimensional football with a solid defence. unspectacular, difficult to beat. he is very good at making a side organised, and organisation and a little bit of 'championship nous' was exactly what was required last season and probably this season too. you were so deep in the **** when he took over, he did such a remarkable job of turning you around and steadying the ship (i thought you were gonners before he came in) but if you give any manager zero funds you can't expect much progress. as it happens, i think you probably have made progress from the little i've seen and judging your results - well, as much as you could expect. you are not going to be in any danger of dropping to league one this season unless mccarthy ups sticks mid-season and evans brings in a poor replacement (hardly out of the realms of possibility with his track record). but not being in danger is progress - you've been in the relegation mix at some point during each season for the last few years - you've not been in the play off/promotion mix. you're closer this year but again, i doubt you'll get in the play offs but if you spend nothing, the best you can hope for is slow and steady progress - many teams would go backwards under the same circumstances. he's obviously never going to be everyone's cup of tea but i think you need mccarthy to stick around until the end of the season at least - let him lay the foundations for someone else to come in and take the reigns if he wants the ireland job (which he blatantly does). if he left now i think it'd be quite tricky to replace him unless it was a pulis type, and although i think pulis is a better manager than mccarthy, it would be a case of 'out of the frying pan' in terms of what the locals want to watch, which is obviously better football without losing the steeliness the current incumbent has clearly installed. as i often say to my lot up the road - a little patience is required. it'll be a slow incline if you want to keep progressing but mccarthy is good at 'slow and steady'
supers - nobody at all is saying he didn't pull off a miracle, but given that we are no longer in the ****, here are the questions: Do we have McCarthy forever because he stopped / stops us getting relegated? Is he motivated to take us onward? Is he capable of taking us up another level? For me, the answers to all those questions are no. Just because Roy Keane was an incredibly poor manager for us it doesn't mean being an average Championship team is more acceptable.
had it been last season you may have been right warky, but we are beginning to see some of the foundations he laid last year being built on with some nice, enterprising football, even if our league position doesn't do it justice at this stage (it will). as yorkie says, will mccarthy build on the foundations he has quite clearly laid? he definitely won't if your owner doesn't back him in the transfer market. i think if he's backed he's one of the best managers in the championship at dragging a group of players together and getting them near the top of the division. i think he gets 'found out' after that stage. however, you might not enjoy watching the quality but i bet if you were near the top of the league it wouldn't bother anyone. i would suggest replacing mccarthy would be very difficult. i think one or two underestimate how well he's currently doing with a very bland group of players. you're a bottom half squad who will likely end up in the top half. that is down to mccarthy. but i do agree, he won't be a long term solution and i think even he knows that.
Hampy it does look increasingly likely that MM will be offered the Ireland job and IF he goes I will be the first to show appreciation for what he has achieved at Town in just a year! I really dont want him to go as he is clearly starting to rebuild what was a pretty shattered club before he arrived and what we need above all now is stability! Five managers in 5 Years is not the Ipswich way of doing things and I am pretty shocked by some of the casual remarks being made about him leaving. We used to laugh at other football clubs for having a revolving door for managers and now we are inhd danger of doing the same thing. IF MM goes I will blame ME for not showing the ambition with Transfer funds in the Summer. Yes MM publically came out and said that he had all he needed but he would say that.. Wouldn't he? IF MM goes then it will mean that TC will probably follow and then we will have to bring in a whole new entourage again! We need this situation like a hole in the head and I have got everything crossed in hoping that MM will see out his contract and carry on with rebuilding this football club.
Lots of good posts on here, the way i look at it is as supers pointed out we were in the ****, we basically didn't have a team to call our own, he came in, organised us defensively and improved us beyond belief with basically no money. that to me is an incredible thing to do and he has to be applauded for that. Anybody that doesn't appriciate that is deluded, anything else is akin to asked a 2 year old to be a strictly come dancing champion by the time they are 3! As for if he goes, well he will go with my blessing and my thanks as he has steadied the ship. I truly believe we have better people in charge on the business side of things and the mistakes we have done in the past won't be repeated. As for who to replace him with, there have been rumours about Nigel Clough, how far off the mark they are i don't know.
