two quick things about lee clark. 1) he was assistant under roeder at city. things REALLY fell apart when he left - i think we can presume the two are connected; and 2) he has spent an absolute fortune in league one and STILL hasn't been able to get out. potentially a promising manager certainly but nothing more in my opinion. also, didn't he turn down leicester a couple of weeks ago? if he turns them down he'll definitely turn you down at the moment!
The real problem Supers is that we are in such a hell of a mess who in their right mind would want to come here and sort it out! George Burley would be my preferred choice. He loves the club, knows the ethos and would soon begin to mould a team of players that want to play for the club. This would buy us some time while we look at a long term solution.
is it really that bad warky? is a change of gaffer the best way forward? and burley! really?? i know he did a great job with you before but that was a decade ago. its a tough one. do you require an experienced head or a younger one with fresh ideas? is your owner going to continue to plough in the millions? should he take a different approach and look to the lower leagues? lots of questions!! personally, i think your biggest problem might be your owner. he obviously bought the club to make money - anyone that thinks he didn't and is doing it for fun or for a love of your club is bonkers. whats the best way to make money? premier league football. how do you get there? pump shedloads of wonga at it. what if that doesn't work? err... err... thats the problem he has! if he keeps doing it and missing out he'll cut his losses. if he takes a more long term view and heads for youth he could be years away from making serious money. if he sacks jewell he has to start again AGAIN! the more he spends getting you there, the more he will have to spend to try and keep you there to recoup his money! city didn't have any option due to delia being a poor millionaire (i wish i was one of those!) so we HAD to rebuild from the bottom up. if we go down its not going to be the end of the world because we have not spent a fortune to get there and haven't spent much while here. we aren't reliant on staying up, we aren't reliant on premier league cash. if you go up you will HAVE to stay up long term for him to make his money back. you might get money galore in the premier league but as soon as the wage bill rises and the transfer fees are paid you end up with nothing if you aren't careful! your club don't seem to have a plan in place either on the pitch or off it and is therefore losing its identity and its clearly getting to you all now. on the pitch is not going well but if i were you i'd switch your attentions to what goes on behind the scenes first. its clearly a car crash at boardroom level
You've hit the nail on the head Supers! Clegg is not a football man and I think was only brought in to help Evans with the Olympics ticket sales. We are crying out for some proper football direction off and on the pitch. Many blamed Sheepy for our woes and although on balance he led us into administration he also saw ud through a period of great sucess as well. Derek Bowden at least had a background in football and saw us through the painfull and difficult period of administration. We have to start again I don't think that we can keep papering over the cracks any more. Football is an industry and when your company is failing and the attendences for your product start to fall action needs to be taken. All is still not lost but we need decisive action and an experienced CEO brought in to rescue the situation. There are so many similarities between us no and your lot a couple of years ago its frightening!
I know about the Everton agreement, my overview was we treated him well, he treated us well - it was mutual respect. The whole comment came from the quote that Cobbold appointed great managers. Yes he did but he also gave them time, which is something some are trying to ignore now. I cant say Jewell will do great or even above average if given time but alternatively I cant say he wont. what is a fair time period to stamp your mark on a team. I cant honestly say at the moment. I am torn between what I feel and what I see on a pitch. Can you say for certain?
i'm afraid you might be right warky. from the top (ignoring the obvious financial differences): CEO who knows nothing about football - neil 'doomcaster' doncaster and simon clegg manager with a big ego but lack of talent - glenn roeder and paul jewell an incompetent captain - mark 'fozzy' fotheringham and grant leadbitter an old, talented player on his last legs - antoine sibierski and jimmy bullard a talented 'keeper who loses his confidence - david marshall and david stockdale a team full of average footballers whose contracts run out - applicable for both teams rest of the team made up of loanees - i won't list them all because there are bloody hundreds of them! a negative atmosphere inside the ground - not sure about your current home atmosphere but ours turned pretty poisonous towards the death; i guess your's isn't exactly purring at the moment plenty of similarities but for me the scariest is all the loanees. its so short term and because they are premier league players they are still on premier league salaries! sibiserski was allegedly on £30k a week at city - our highest EVER earner!! to put that into perspective, our highest earner now we are in the premier league is on less than £15k a week basic salary. and sibierski was bloody hopeless! too old, too lazy, too rich. our top scorer that year was leroy lita - he only played 15 games and was one of the better loanees, but he still had to leave! he didn't want to stay and who could blame him. its all about balance but you won't find any kind of balance with five or six loan players
Experience to steady the boat on short term contracts while we scout younger players. If we needed experienced players (which we did considering the amount of out of contract players this summer) then why is it bad that they are on high wages AND short term contracts? Surely that is the best way to do it!
We have three loanees in our first team! Two of which are likely permanent additions in Jan. What are you on about Supers? In the short term we are in trouble but if Jewell does what he says he wants to do and bring in some young and hungry players from the lower leagues I am certain we will improve. Long term looks ok to me but then again I'm a Jewell loving blind sheep whose opinion doesn't count.
You do actually remember what happened the last time we put Burley and money together dont you? He will rightly be highly regarded when it comes to the history of our club but the moment the guy got cash he was useless - reminds me of JM in that category although on a higher level. This would also be the same Burley who has an almost identical track record to our current manager. Two notable achievements with Us and Hearts and a complete failure everywhere else. Bad headlines in the papers and dodgy rumours of his social life everywhere you look. You say Burley knows our clubs ethos. He knows what we used to be about but I think we are far removed from that place now unfortunately
There's experience and then there's OAPS! Cant find a club that will take you on? Getting on a bit? Need a high paid final contract before retirement? Guarenteed to play every week? - Dont let the blue shirt and the badge put you off! We have just the thing for you! Welcome To Ipswich Town Football Club, they don't mind if your past it!
I think you are being overly harsh Tractorbhoy and it surprises me. Under Burley we played bright, sharp and attacking football and it was a pleasure to watch. Yes it was 10 years ago since he was unfairly sacked but he still retains the desire for the game and he would be best placed to come in and rescue the club's reputation or what little we have left. The second season yes he was like a kid in a sweets shop but I didn't hear too many fans at the time complaining about him spending money! On a tight financial budget he would deliver a team that we would be proud of and at least we can say that they would play for the shirt.
well yes wright, that certainly makes sense, but my point wasn't about how old they were, more to do with what your clubs ambitions were for the season. you must have been aiming for promotion this season with the calibre of players signed but its a quick fix - many of these players won't be around next season so what exactly is the plan if you don't go up? it makes no sense to me. it seems you've signed players purely to get you through one season. its bizarre but obviously i'm only looking at it from the outside. hey svendust. i read somewhere else that you currently have five players on loan and are looking to add another one this week. from what i read, none of the loanees are likely to sign. even if they do (barring the 'keeper) they are in their 30s i believe. that isn't a long term plan. if he always planned on signing young players, why didn't he do so during the summer? its not as if he'd had no time to scan the market and do some scouting - i'm not even saying fill the entire team with youngsters - just four or five rather than the likes of loanees or the likes of bullard who, despite being hero worshipped by some of you, really isn't much cop. its all viewed from a short-term perspective - get promoted as quickly as possible, then worry about replacing that team to keep you there. surely better to build a team now slowly and get some foundations rather than rushing and doing a bad job. just my opinion sven but i reckon you are being a tad optimistic about jewell.
as always warky! seriously though, as a city fan i've watched an awful lot of crap and your club are making all the same mistakes that my own did three years ago. naturally, it doesn't mean the same fate awaits you but anyone who thinks all is well at your club and you are improving seems deluded to me. you might not end up in league one but in my opinion you're further away from the premier league than you've ever been
OK a fair point. I think the difference between the fans who want Jewel out now and the fans who want to give him more time are our beliefs for this season. I personally remember the end of last season when I thought we would be in a relegation battle. We somehow managed to pull things together but whatever Jewel had learnt about the team by that time was useless because the majority of the players were out of contract! From that point onward I expected a mid table finish this season with signs of promise towards the end and a definite promotion push next season. Those who want Jewel out, are (in my opinion!) being completely unrealistic about the state of our team when he took over. In one transfer window he had to rebuild the entire squad. He has said his long term plan is to bring in a mixture of youth and experience - experienced players are easy to find but hard to sign but he has done a good job so far in attracting them. Youth with good potential are much harder to find but we shouldn't have a problem signing them. If he doesn't bring in the young, hungry ambitious players like he has said he will then you won't see me defending him any more, but I think he should be given more time to find them before being shown the door.
agree 100% with everything you say apart from your last sentence. Loved Burleys time here. I became a PR regular during his spell and watched us play fantastic attacking football with a nice blend of youth, unheard offs, gambles and more experienced players. We didnt complain at the time about his mad signings whilst living the euro dream but with hindsight its easy to see his money signings were not the best. The problem is we now have money and I wouldnt trust him to bring in the talent that would see us succeed. He has since failed everywhere other than Hearts and normally leaves under a cloud (alcohol or affairs normally) He has been out of work for a period and his record compares fairly evenly with Jewell. Take away the obvious and I cant see any other reason for going down this route.
I think you are missing the point with all due respect! We DO have some talented young players already at the club with the likes of Luke Hyam and Shane O'Connor but they do not even feature on the bench FFS! What does Hyam have to do to get a game when we are leaking so many goals through our midfields lack of ability in keeping the ball! Why is Bullard playing there when we all know that he is getting pressured on the ball and can't keep it! If we play Bullard we need to play him further up the park linking up the play not at the base of a poxy diamond. If Jewell was that bothered about youth then why isn't he picking some of the kids we already have?
Agree with what you say about our current crop of young players not getting a chance JWM. What is it Jewell sees in training that we don't? I really thought we would have seen Hyam et al push on this year and get precious game time but they seem to be falling behind. We won't be able to attract any youth players to our club if they don't see the ones who are already here being given a chance (Cressy excluded) "If he doesn't bring in the young, hungry ambitious players like he has said he will then you won't see me defending him any more, but I think he should be given more time to find them before being shown the door" Agree with this too however.
I also will say I feel Hyam's disappearance astonishing. The ONLY time we did well under Keane, the man was playing every game. What has happened since is beyond me. I think there's a general consensus that certain players ( LEADBITTER ) are truly horrific and need shipping on A S A P. Also, there are other players that MUST play more often ( Carson / Martin ) There are players who COULD be a hit if they bothered ( JET / possibly Carson again but I think he's getting there ) Some questionable signings....( Ellington ) ,,,, Bowyer possibly due to age,,,,, And the final point is our wage bill is simply ridiculous. The defence at the start ( well i Say start, we're letting in tonnes again now ) Things have to change. I'm beginning to be rather unsure about Mr Jewell. It isn't simply the bad results, its comments made such as " square passes in midfield " that were apparent a long time back that he appears to be finally noticing. Not a fan of loaning all and sundry, not a fan of this diamond, and not a fan of tapping up other players. With the wages we've spend, we should be doing better. I think it'd be arrogant to expect promotion, its a tough league. However, I'm one for progression. I maintain Keane was an utter disgrace of a manager in so many respects, I think that alone is the main reason I'm not getting on Jewell's case quite so much at present. Keane sucked much of my passion out of the club it was untrue. Have we progressed since sacking Magilton ? simply put, no. We've gone so far backwards, its untrue. We've thrown the money around on wages at least idiotically, and funnily enough 4 years down the line we're going backwards. It's a ridiculous predicament we're currently in. We really really SHOULD be doing much better than we are at present. Massive game at home to Reading next. A win is a must.
