I have to say JWM I had no gripe against Sheepshanks appointing Magilton. In fact it turned out to be a pretty good appointment for the first couple of years. IMO magilton has the potential to be a very very good manager, he just needs perhaps tone down his fiery character sometimes. Clearly things changed when Evans came in and for me it came about as negativity, more negative tactics focused on opposing teams rather than our own strenghts, negative mentality, not great signings(but solid). Even though I'm a fan of what Royle did at the club I'm not 100% convinced that he would have got us to the premierleague with money. It appears Ipswich and money don't go together. I remember some of the signings Royle made at Man City and was one of the main reasons why i was sceptical about him coming our manager at first. But whether if he was in charge we would have got promoted or not we will never know but I'm not so sure it would have been as certain as amany think. As you all know the biggest problem for me was the appointment of Keane, not only is he absolutely clueless but we were crying out for an experienced manager, after so many people wanted Jim out for being too fiery, having fallouts with players, spending too much money on average players, being inexperienced we appoint someone who is far better(or worse depending on which way you see it) at all of these!! I couldn't believe it at the time and still can't believe we got ourselves into that situation. We were in a very promising position then, certainly something we are not in now and haven't been for some time.
i would agree about lambert but everyone connected to norwich knows the real reason why the clubs fortunes changed around - david mcnally, our chief executive. no more nicey nicey norwich city - time to banish that to the history books. experience with celtic and fulham meant we finally had a football man at the top who didn't mess with anyone. hard as nails and an exceptional business man. ok, so we were naughty in our pursuit of lambert from colchester but we've had it done to ourselves many times before. finally my football club grew some balls. delia has done wonderful things for the football club and some truly shocking things. nobody can dispute she has the clubs best interests at heart but she needed a football man at the top. neil doncaster, well, you can see what he's done to scottish football of late! the biggest difference between our football clubs is organisation. we got ourselves sorted in league one - yes it wasn't where we wanted to be but without it we wouldn't have been able to gain the 'winning habit' that we'd not had for five years! your club also suffers from this problem - so used to losing. it could have all gone wrong and we could have ended up where plymouth are now - we did require a bit of luck but 99% of it was down to some seriously hard graft and acute decisions in the boardroom and in the dugout. everyone at the club was pulling in the same direction for the first time since god knows when! we already had full houses so getting the fans on board wasn't difficult - a few wins and some exciting football did the trick - it didn't matter what league we were in at the time. suddenly there's a buzz, a spirit in the city, not just on a match day but throughout the week. its a football city and ipswich is a football town. the same could happen to you but you need to get it right off the pitch first - i don't think ipswich have
" Even though I'm a fan of what Royle did at the club I'm not 100% convinced that he would have got us to the premierleague with money. " Well I certainly am. We came 3rd with sod all, the board went in for Unsworth on loan to attempt to keep us happy. 1 or 2 more signings that year, and we'd have been up for sure. Kuqi's injury at a key moment really highlighted how reliant we had been on 14 / 15 players that season. Take the next season - Jewell replaced Bent + Kuqi ( blady hard task ) with Parkin + Forster, which on paper at least should have been around 60% as effective. I'm obviously going down the hypothetical road here, but the lack of goals that season are what ruined us. Parkin just didn't work, and Forster was as injury prone as myself. Royle had his work out with the likes of Adam Proudlock, Dean McDonald etc. Alan Lee made a MASSIVE impact in january. Also, the one that convinced Royle it was time to leave, was Fuller. £150,000 he would have cost us........... would the board stump up the cash !? Royle had zero choice but to walk. Yes we were in financial meltdown, yes we had to assemble a squad cheaply. However, I am convinced with more luck 05/06 we could have done rather well. Therefore, my summary is Royle + continuity that he had created + MONEY ( not to buy 15 players, simply 4 or 5 ) = premiership.
I agree with most of your points Superman as always. But sometimes when things are going wrong at a club if people don't blame the manager they blame alot of the time the board or the chairman. Whilst I would say that things are certainly not rosy behind the scenes or ideal, I think that actually we aren't that badly run club. We have a benefactor like alot of teams do now, who IMO is probably the best of a bad bunch. He's always backed the manager and never interfered with what happens on the pitch unlike most and everytime he releases something in the press it is exactly the right thing to say, that could be just good PR or he could actually mean it. Perhaps both Clegg and Evans were and still are a little naive but I don't believe them to be incompetant. The Evans era so far has been pretty unsuccessful, infact awful but due to a number of reasons, when he first came in we weren't ready for the vast amount of money and Jim didn't know how to handle it then he left, with the right management we were still potentially in a good position but we appointed Keane and the rest is history, we are now in a mess alot of which is down to Keane, clearly he is not making the tactical decisions which Jewell is making etc but make no doubt about it if Jewell took over when Keane did, we certainly wouldn't be in a similar position to what we are in now!!! So what I am trying to say, is you are a well run club, its is debatable with us but if 2 and a half years ago you would have appointed Keane and we would have appointed Lambert when Magilton was sacked I'm pretty confident we would be in the premierleague and you would probably be in the conference no matter what happened behind the scenes!!! Obviously saying that I don't think that I don't think McNaulty would have appointed someone like Keane and stuck with him quite so long to ruin your club as he has ours!!! Westlake I'm not arguing against it but I'm not as sure as alot of people say, we have always been rubbish with money, who would have thought Burley would have wasted money, and I remember everyone saying when Jim was in charge and we were in the playoffs, if only we had money then that would guarentee us promotion, we got money and we all thought we were certs to go up but it isn't that easy.
you say you aren't run badly but you certainly aren't run well! you would have made yet another astonishing loss this year had it not been for the huge sale of wickham - lets face it, you aren't gonna find a wickham every year to cover your costs!! you've made roughly a loss of £40m in the last three years excluding the sales of walters and wickham! yes you have a benefactor but he is running your club very poorly. and this was my original point - the way he is running your club can't go on - he'll have to change his philosophy UNLESS you are promoted this season, or at least very quickly. you could argue the club doesn't owe any money but frankly it does, even if it is to your owner. do you really think he won't want that money back and more? getting the correct manager is of course vital but your owners haphazard approach to getting you promoted isn't helping you at all in my opinion. strangely, i think you'd have been in the premier league by now had magilton still been in charge and evans not come along.
Good evening all. Just reading through this thread and very good and interesting read Just like to say about the whole manager situation, its not only about the top dog in jewell but his surrounding team. Lambert the other day was saying he wouldnt and we wouldnt be where we are without gary karsa and ian culverhouse. Its all about the knowledge of a manager and his team who keeps there eyes wide open as they progress through theyre career. Jewell has been around along while now and that obviousley is showing in his transfer dealings, lacking abit risk in his transfer policy. Lambert and co have bought in players from there years rising through the league pyramid and have got most of them at peanuts, this is not only lamberts choices though, culverhouse has made his ideas known and 2 or 3 have come here to. Maybe instead of shelling out millions on wages and fees, he should get rid of clegg and invest his money and time into getting a young and hungry manager with a team to match his ambition. Im sure the tied will turn again for you guys, as it has done this season already 2 or 3 times...
Superman I agree with your point. But there aren't many clubs left out there run as you are run, most have benefactors looking to make money nowadays, its a sad fact of football and not ideal but its the situation we are in. And really at the time we needed a benefactor to come in due to the clubs debt. I hate to say this but how Norwich are run currently is probably how ever club in the country would like to be run. I question whether he is looking to make money out of Ipswich in the fact that he will take the money back he has put into the club or is using us more as greater exposure to his company and getting to the premierleague will only give him greater exposure. So far this appears to be working as in times of reccession his worth has increased quite alot!! I believe that unless he experiences financial difficulty he won't as such drop us in it, it would be bad press for him and why would he take so much money out of the club to hinder its chances!!! The more I look at it I don't think this is what he is in for, its the exposure of getting his name and brand out there, which potentially was a factor in the getting Keane as manager. I also believe a big injection of cash from whoever, even if it was sheepshanks as a club I think it would have taken time to acclimatize to this new found wealth. But I do agree, I really thought we had something going with Jim before Evans came in, which infact is why Evans probably came in in the first place. I think both Evans and Clegg aren't mugs, perhaps naive at times like I say perhaps I see them as the best of a bad bunch. I'd prefer to have them in charge of our football club than most of those who are in charge in the premierleague and also this division. I would say perhaps the pressure to get promotion so quick is the major setback this season so far and really like many have said I think we needed to take a long term plan and basically write this season and even possibly next off about getting promoted.
