Seems to me that Ipswich need: 1) a right back (who can head the ball and defend as well as get forward) 2) play Edwards right wing (or carson) 3) a left winger - o connor? drury? martin? just give someone a consistent spell in the team 4) to decide which central midfielders they want to play. playing 4 doesnt work and stifles width, pace and shape (Leadbitter, Andrews, Bowyer, Bullard. For what its worth Bowyer is terrible and I would go Andrews and Bullard). All very well if you want to switch to a diamond but its the single system Jewell plays. 5) a consistent strike pairing, including someone who can actually win headers. Scotland likes it into feet and Chopra is a poacher. Need someone in the Kuqi / Lee style. 6) confidence 7) not to panic buy unfit defenders like Sonko, yes you need someone who can win balls in the air, but not if he can only play half the matches (a bit like our Jaidi!) 8) the fans to get behind the team a bit more
John Cobbold however kept in touch with the fans and the fans loved him for that. He knew nothing about football but he kept the club solvent and knew how to pick a manager or two!
Cortese I agree with a little of what you say but frankly the fans getting behind the team a bit more is trying the patience of a saint! No pun intended!
Good evening all, its not very nice to see so many fans frustrated at their clubs performance,and having been there many times with my club I can sympathies. My question is how do you rate Stockdale in this sieve like defense of yours,and do you think you will extend his loan spell.
That’s right, and something I think most people do recognise. Keano surely was the worst squad builder (if you can use the word “build” in known history. However, with, say, Burley rebuilding after the ravages of the late Lyall/McGiven era, the performances and the signs were at least positive in the main. No insane slaughterings (at least not once we were out of the Prem!) and clueless, shambolic performances. The occasional poor one, perhaps, but never the horror shows we frequently witness. There’s times when you trust the men in charge and times when you have to slap your forehead and wonder what the hell’s going on. ITFCPTC Continues (I can't work out this multi quote business) “I'm not saying we should have continuity for the sake of it, as I'm sure you noticed I pretty much wanted Keane out of the door as soon as he was appointed and many were arguing against me saying we need continuity, we can't just keep sacking managers, well if you don't appoint the right one in the first place then get rid asap. “ On the one hand you’re saying we must give a manager time and avoid chopping and changing, on the other you claim you’d have got rid of Keano at the earliest opportunity. To justify this, you say you wouldn’t have appointed Keane in the first place. Fair enough, but if you claim this you must allow the same logic for the anti-Jewell contingent who claim the same thing, I.E., they wouldn’t have appointed him. He certainly wouldn’t have been on my radar if I'd been in charge, like him though I do. “But I don't think Jewell is completely wrong for the club and he hasn't had enough time for us to effectively judge him yet. Perhaps he is not right for the club but IMO I don't think he will take us backwards as Keane did.” Fair enough and I concur to an extent, though I suspect I’m considerably further on the less time than more spectrum than you are. Both perfectly reasonable positions to take, as far as I’m concerned. That aside, I was intrigued by previous speculations from Warky and Spanish as to what the goals conceded looked like. I did a spot of research to find out, and while it turned out to be a bigger job than the five minutes that I’d assumed, I report the results here: Win etc percentages: PJ: W 42%; D 16%; L 42% RK: W 31$; D 33%; 36% Goals conceded (per match in charge): PJ: 1.74 RK: 1.31 At home: PJ: 1.74 RK: 1.08 Away: PJ: 1.74 (same games played home and way, same number conceded) RK: 1.52 Goal Diff: PJ: -7 RK: -13
A thoroughly excellent post Jonah. So far this season under Jewell and more importantly now Jewell's team, we have amassed 20 points. From exactly the same time last season we had amassed 24 points under Keane. I am not advocating that we should have stuck with Keane but we should never have taken a chance on Jewell. I like the guy and I like the things he says but they are just words and platitudes at the end of the day. The backroom staff don't fill me with confidence either as Chris Hutchings was fired at Walsall before Jewell brought him here. Our season is pretty much over bar a complete miracle and we look forward to the prospect of a long hard struggle. How we all laughed at that lot up the A140 when they were in a much similar situation to the one we find ourselves in now. They had a complete nightmare when they appointed a non entity in Peter Grant and then they went for a high profile "name" and appointed Glen Roeder. Under his stewardship they brought in all sorts of journeymen and loanees who couldn't give a toss and relegation soon followed. We can not be complacent about retaining our Championship status because too many "too big to go down" teams have fallen through the trap door. Just look at Sheffield Wednesday and Sheffield United for examples this season. It is not stupid to make a mistake but only stupid when you constantly repeat the same ones! Look at yesterday for example! Cotterill said during the week that he had studied in detail how we played in the diamond formation and was confident that his team could combat this style. Low and behold what system did Jewell deploy again yesterday! It gives me no pleasure in saying that Jewell and Clegg should go but for the future of this club we must now part the ways. Our reputation as a hardworking, attacking and youthful football club that beljeves in developing youth has been frittered away by Evans. We are fast becoming a national laughing stock and action needs to be taken before more humiliation is heaped upon us!
John Cobbold may not have known about the football but theres a reason ipswich fans loved him, he was a character who the fans had a huge amount of respect for what he did to our club. marcus evans has given us a hell of a lot of money and you can't knock him for that but i do think he need to re evaluate his stance on public appearences. we have a right to know who on earth owns our club!
The reason we should give PJ longer is because he has a long term plan... and unsurprisingly a long-term plan takes time! You say he speaks good things but they are "just words", well how about a bit of evidence of a larger plan: First of all he brought in experienced players on short contracts to steady the storm of 20 or so players out of contract. All his signings over 30 -Ingimarson 1 year, Collins 4 months, Bowyer 1 year, Andrews 1 year, Sonko 1 year. Ellington (2 years), Bullard (2 years) are the only two longer. Can't really excuse Ellington but at the start of the season every ITFC supporter would have bitten your hand off to get Bullard for 2 years. Step two of the plan...look for young players to build a team that will play good football for years to come. He doubled the scout team by employing 2 new full time scouts and told them to look for "young, hungry, powerful and pacy" players. Now I completely agree that playing Leadbitter AT ALL is a terrible mistake, and making him captain is lunacy. Also the diamond formation needs to go, fair enough it worked a few times but teams have worked us out now and it just isn't working any more! Then there is playing Bullard in the holding role which is an absolute waste... BUT STILL as long-term plans go I reckon he has got it bang on, and if we do get a few more "cressys" we will be unstoppable, which is why I agree with PTC in that I have seen enough good things to still have confidence in the future, despite the recent results.
I think we all agree that our problem is the defence we have, so the general opinion is that Stockdale is a quality keeper but he could literally be gone tomorrow, Cresswell is a good young left back who will improve with experience, Collins is a Quality central defender who might not be here much longer, Sonko is also a quality central defender who is a long term injury case, Edwards is a midfielder converted to right back and it shows. The midfield which is supposed to protect the defence is as follows, Bowyer is totally ineffective, Bullard shows class but not consistent, Andrews is a good grafter who also might not be here much longer, Leadbitter seems to have completely lost his way and is therefore ineffective as well. That leaves bit part players like Carson who promises much for the future and Martin who doesnt, JET may amount to something but he hasnt shown it yet. It doesnt give us fans much to be optimistic about does it, and things wont change until we get a specialist right back and play Edwards in his rightful position and get 2 more Quality central defenders and a keeper. The midfield needs at least 2 more players who can get up and down the pitch for 90 minutes, until we do this we will continue shipping goals and losing to mediocre teams. Its not good is it?
At last we have a good debate going on here and some good points most of which I agree with. More of the same please. JJ good post. I share your concerns at the same time as I can see areas of improvement and positive signs some of the results and performances have been shocking an no matter what the situation we've been in and personnel/changes etc they are simply not good enough. But at the same time I'm looking at some of the other results not just in this league but in he premierleague and some of them are just as shocking, the leagues are so unpredictable atm, its really odd. JJ "On the one hand you’re saying we must give a manager time and avoid chopping and changing, on the other you claim you’d have got rid of Keano at the earliest opportunity. To justify this, you say you wouldn’t have appointed Keane in the first place. Fair enough, but if you claim this you must allow the same logic for the anti-Jewell contingent who claim the same thing, I.E., they wouldn’t have appointed him." - I'm not saying they can't think that but I'm just arguing my point of view and again I've seen enough to say that Jewell warrants more time. There's not many managers who I've never said that about(apart from Keane) and in the main over the past 10 years I think we've generally got rid of the manager at the right time. Unless I think the manager is completely useless and is ruining the club and taking it in a direction I don't like I think they should be given a decent amount of time. I never thought of PJ as a potential appointment after Keane was sacked, and even when he was hired I was slightly sceptical bad he did a superb job at Wigan withh similar finances and I've always thought he was a decent manager, although his time at Derby does always leave that nagging doubt in your mind!! JWM I think its hard to compare the start to this season compared to last, as they are different circumstances. We got off to a superb start last season which probably buffered us up to this point. Our playing personnel is certainly better this year but the players probably aren't as settled at the club because most of them haven't been here for a few months. Last year the performances were not as like chalk and cheese as they are this year we were in general pretty average and extremely extremely boring. This season we've been entertaining in parts and have certainly seen more goals at both ends!! Indeed Cobbold was a great character and would love for Evans to come out and show us who he is but at the same time I have a respect for him that he wants to keep his privacy, although I don't know how he does it being head of a multi million pound company and football club. fieldmarshall, I agree with your points and this year who ever was in charge they needed to bring alot of players in and who ever was in charge some of those may not have been the right players and some would be short term fixes. Whoever is in charge it was going to take more than 1 transfer window to get us sorted out. For me Jewell has in the whole been pretty good in the transfer market considering what he's had to deal with and the number of players needed to get in without really having a scouting network or the time to really scout the leagues. I think he got in experience(most of which of good quality) to steady the ship and perhaps some of the higher profile names we have got in would maybe encourage other players to join the club, the bit where its gone wrong which I am scratching my head at is this experience hasn't overly steadied the ship and I can't believe when we are winning a game that with the quality and experiance we have we can't see it out and play keep ball. I think over the next few transfer windows if he gets the chance he will recruit some younger players. JWM to write the season off completely this year is crazy, although saying this I'm going to go on and say that I had already written this season off as a midtable finish before it had started because what ever happened over the summer this year was always going to be an inconsistent one of transition. My predictions for this year were always we were going to have an indifferent start(although not this much like chalk and cheese) and then have a good run toward the end of he season just missing out on the playoffs. I'm sure about 2 and a half months ago JWM you were writing the season off and then we had a good few results and you were saying we were certs for the playoffs!! This is the nature of this league, we get 3 decent results and we'll be back up there and have 3 more of the kind and will be near relegation. I think we need to sit tight and be patient this season.
I pretty much summed up my views in a previous thread, the result and the highlights from yesterday confirm to me defense is still the issue, despite cotterill saying he knew how to play us he wasnt in front untill the final moment and it wasnt because we were torn apart, it was our own schoolboy defending. When Sonko returns we should at least be able to deal with crosses into the box, which would have allowed us to win that game. You cant crictise Jewell for signing Sonko, yes hes an injury worry and isnt the best defender but who else was realistically available that provided what we needed. Keane asked us to judge him at the end of two years, we did and he had destroyed a team that he said himself only needed tweaking. I'm firmly on the optimistic side for the future, and the targets that are being linked IMO are the promising if he doesnt deliver something that looks like hes sticking to this plan for young hungry players then we can criticise.
I like the way Wright put things across. A long term plan takes just that, time. I am eager to see what PJ does in the next transfer window, I hope he will find some more gems so that he can send the old horses to the knackers yard. I'm sticking with it for now, I hope we at least get some better performances even if the result goes against us. I think that's what's pissing most people off, it's not the result per se but the manner of the defeat. You really would think our squad could at least close a game out with the experience we have. I also hope that was the last we've seen of the diamond for a while, I said a long time ago that we would struggle against any team who used width. It worked for a while, and teams who matched us up got beaten but those who employed their wingers well have had a lot more success. The diamond should now be our plan B.
I don't like intruding on private grief but it seems to me that Jewell isn't the problem.Kean spent the money and bought rubbish now Jewell has to sweep up the mess.I seem to remember a season when it took you until about now to get a first win.Ipswich are in no immediate danger of relegation and who else would you get?Give him a chance.OK the play offs are looking out of reach but would a mid table finish be a disaster? I would settle for that with my team.
I read in the local rag today that Jewell has not ruled out more signings before the emergency loan period runs out on Thursday. Jeeez! That's one of the big reasons why we are in this mess in the first place! Short term fixes papering over the cracks. He bought in 13 players in the summer including many loans and now he thinks getting more loans in will somehow fix the problem! I despair! Could you ever imagine a time under Burley when we would have so many journeymen loans at the club? What he and Royle did was simply promote some of the youth and give them a chance otherwise whats the point of having a youth system? What Jewell should be concentrating on is getting the best out of his players and promoting the hungry talent like Hyam, White, Lavery et al into the first team. At least they would have the pace and passion for the shirt.
I agree with you on this one JWM but I just feel that Jewell considers players like Hyam, O'Connor, Peters etc a risk that could result in a hammering if he picks them. He would rather pick experienced pros in the wrong formation than pick youngsters in the right formation. Not how I would do things.
too many loans warky, too many loans! jewell is getting you guys into a predicament once again. you have loads of old players, loads of crocks, loads of loanees, loads of contracts coming to an end... you will end up rebuilding YET AGAIN this summer! to me, it seems jewell has aimed for automatic promotion, well, promotion in some shape or form, by signing experienced premier league performers with a view to a quick fix, promoted this year, and spend the promotion money rebuilding with better players. otherwise, what exactly is his plan? it can't be to build a different team each and every year! i think he's gonna be in trouble if you lose another couple of games on the spin. i don't believe you weren't aiming at promotion this season. jewell did pretty well last term when he came in but how much of that was the 'new manager bounce'? you can't deny it doesn't happen - even norwich under roeder went 15 games unbeaten when he was first appointed! i'm not sure of his record but you do seem to lose regularly!!
Been stated before, this quick fix was always meant to be papering over the cracks with whatever was available, although promotion is the always the ultimate aim of every club i cant remember since jewell came in anyone but fans mentioning that promotion was a possibility even with the supposed pedigree we were bringing in. I agree that youth could be used in place of loans but whether it was p'boro result where Smith and Ainsley were in the defence or something else in training jewell obviously cant trust the youth we currently have, getting the best out of the current crop is something i cant defend jewell on and maybe we can blame jewell for not being able to rediscover the Carson of the end of last season, but there is defintly a mix of individual errors 'across the white line' in there, i have seen some people say there is at least some evidence of players playing for each other which the manager is undoubtedly responsible for, so once again pinning my hope on incoming younger hungry cresswell type players in january, this team spirit can be instilled more effectivly.
The problem with this quote is that Cobbold faced the same situation that some are calling for now. Thousands of fans wanted GOD (or SBR) to be kicked out after an indifferent set of results with no sign that the club was moving forward. He (Cobbold) told the fans to sod off and insisted he had it right and the rest is history. And why did GOD stay here so long? Because the club treated him right and behaved in the correct manner. We stuck by him during low spells, he stuck with us during his brightest days. He turned down overtures from the biggest of the big to stay here and left (and took a pay cut) only when his country came calling. Football has moved on alot. Time is a commodity that does not exist these days. A manager can be sacked after a 8 or 9 game losing streak even if his previous 5 year spell has been more than anybody ever expected. Do we stick or twist? - I hope we stick but I can see the argument for twisting. The amount of cash our board has chucked at the club since the takeover has been stupid and quite frankly there are (literally) only 1 or 2 members of the first team squad and staff that can say they have done enough. Since the ME takeover we have been obvious and short sighted and the current situation can be traced back through the seasons to the first transfer window after his takeover. A group of rejects, freebies and youth who worked hard for each other and it showed. We had little individual talent but they played for this club. Since then we have brought in reputation, whether in the form of K**** or players. I thought Jewell may have been the first signing that showed a change of emphasis. He has a pedigree and a history but hes not a showcase manager. The introduction of Carson (who?? we all said) and signings like Drury and Cresswell suggested a new approach. Low expediture but worthy of a gamble. A true town signing (Have we ever paid decent money for a player that has excelled?) players that could potentially grab a chance with two hands to prove that they could make it. The press conferences suggested that a need to build a unity was important and the odd trip to a cafe, rather than a verbal assault for being useless, was sometimes required. A few experienced heads came in, arguably needed, but then we went experience mad. Another scattergun approach to transfers with little thought, it seems, as to what is required. The few youngster that earnt a chance last season overlooked no or little reason. We have all seen the team play this season. It hasnt been the unwatchable paint drying exercise that K**** made us watch but the results have been below par when you consider the pedigree on pitch. We have a pitch full of international who appear unable to do the basics. We concede sloppy goal after sloppy goal and we have little idea in attack. The odd glimpse has been there but 10 minutes in a 90 minute game is just shockingly bad. I dont want us to be a revolving door club. Other than Keane there is not been one manager who I didnt think deserved a decent chance, say 2 years, to get their chance to put idea's across. ITFC used to be a club built on decent ethics and they are ethics I would love us to keep to this day. I cant honestly say if I think getting rid is the answer. I think our problems are deeper than formation and a need for cutting out individual errors are a must but I can also say that an unwillingness to try something new is probably limiting our effectiveness. I could argue that 99% of the players deserve to be sacked more than the manager but it is the manager whose fate will be decided before the hoards of players. Can this manager turn us arounds - I can see the odd glimpse, fleeting though it is Can another manager do a better job - 50/50 for me. Are there any obvious candidates out there or are we going to give everyone a go for a 6 month period and continue the chaos
Why not go all out to get Lee Clarke? Roughly the same age as when Burley joined us and he has the same amount of experience now as Burley did back then. Failing that give George the chance to steady the ship and get us playing the Ipswich way again. While this present comedy of errors is allowed to continue the attendances will soon be dipping below 15,000 at PR on a regular basis!
Tractorbhoy I agree with most of what you say but when you say that GOD rejected overtures from bigger clubs that's not strictly accurate. He says in his autobiography that he had accepted the Everton job and went up to meet their chairman who gave him a cheque. To his horror he then discovered that the meeting had been leaked to a national newspaper before the ink had time to dry. He then tore up the cheque and went and asked John Cobbold if he could remain as manager. I am not judging him as the man is a legend but I'm merely setting this in context. You can not compare the situation from 40 years ago to the one we face now. The benefit of hindsight is a wonderful thing and what makes you think that another year or 2 of Jewell is going to be any better?
