JWM I'm trying to find a nice way of putting this but I can't find a way but you are more fickle than any one on here, maybe not in the fact you don't rate Jewell but you change your views from one end of the scale to the other on these boards dependant if we win or loose. We may not have made visible progress but we certainly haven't gone backwards. We have had far higher quality performances at the end of this season than last. We have more quality players than we had this time last year and although we still need to strengthen alot of positions we are not as in as desperate a need as we were last year. We may not be challenging for promotion next season but I'm pretty confident we won't be in a relegation fight, we might had a poor start again but not as prolonged next year. Plus JWM I think after a couple of decent signings come the start of the summer you will be the first one to big us up for automatic promotion. I rate Chopra and Scotland. Scotland has been very good this season, his overall game and hold up play has been superb and I think he deserves credit for getting himself in shape and also waivering his contract. Chopra has been hot and cold this season, sometimes he has looked like the best striker we've had at the club since marcus stewart then other times he looks very unconfident and unfit. Hopefully next season will be more settled for everyone and players can find some more consistent form. But I do think if we want to be up the top next year we need 2 more strikers, although certainly we need to strengthen CB, GK and RB over these areas.
Football is about highs and lows and emotions, win and you feel great, lose and you feel depressed. I'm not a ****ing robot! Now that this season has ended in yet another dismal failure and we step back and look at why we are where we are, you can only come to one conclusion. We are going backwards, maybe not as fast as we did under keane but nonetheless we are light years away from being serious promotion contenders. Next seaon will see us as the longest serving team in this division, the team we have taken this dubious mantle from has just been relegated after 11 years! We need to run faster just to keep still and I'm afraid that the mistakes made this season were mostly avoidable if Jewell had had a coherent plan in the first place. You cant be in a position where you have your no1 goalkeeper as a loanee! You can't expect to keep clean sheets when you use 4 different goalkeepers in one season. Our goal difference now is -9 and the main reasons for this is that Jewell didn't prioritise our defence when MaCaulay left and only brought in Sonko at the 11th hour. Ingimarsson! Do me a ****ing favour! He was a complete joke of a signing along with Ellington! Jewell will now have an even harder job in the summer when he will have next to no money to bring in quality footballers. Who will want to come to Ipswich? Not young, hungry players that's for sure! More like more washed up has beens looking for a final pay day. Our youth academy has been ripped to shreds, kids like Hyam who show promise are casually discarded for no apparent reason. Kids graduating are not offered good enough deals and the players we have here are only offered 1 year deals! Its a ****ing mess and how you can sit there in all seriousness and say that we are making great progress is just completely absurd! It is an utter disgrace that Leadbitter is even on the bench let alone being constantly picked over Hyam! He should have been transfer listed last summer and to make him club captain just sums up Jewell's utter incompetence. We are now hanging on to see if Leadbitter will reward us with his presence for another 2 or 3 years while we only offer Hyam and Smith 1 ****ing year. Where is the logic in that? We have Lee Martin who has said that he would love to be offered a new contract at Town, his current deal runs out at the end of next season and so far I haven't heard of any contract talks going on. I have been going regularly to Portman Road since 1974/75 and in all that time I have never felt so depressed, exasperated, frustrated and totally pissed off with all the things that are happening at our club. There are a few who are still in denial and are happy to bury their heads in the sand, maybe you are one of them! We have been in this slumber for far too long and we seem to have been preserved in aspic while clubs like Norwich, Brighton, Southampton, Reading et al have overtaken us and as each season passes, without serious ambition, the gap will get bigger and bigger! We are all crying out for some serious leadership and direction but all we get are endless platitudes! The soul of this club has been destroyed ever since ME arrived and the level of investment for next season will not be forthcoming. We are now busy reducing mediocre players wages so what chance do we have of attracting and offering young, hungry talented players decent contracts! Yes this is just about as **** as it gets!
Don't normally comment but I feel I have to after reading some of the comments on here. Odviously nobody associated with the football club should/could be happy with this season, however it is not as bad as people think. Personally I feel progress has been made from last season, ok we are on about the same amount of points from last year, but remember we showed play off form from January last year, thanks to Jewell coming in, we were in a relegation fight until then! If people do wish to use stats to slate Jewell then surely they would accept that Norris was one of our best players in recent decades, and has shown that form again this season!? Clearly this is not the case, and if football was as simple as just using tatistics, Liverpools transfer policy would help show that! I believe we have the core of a good team, especially going forward, and with one or two new recruits, we could have one of the strongest attacks in the division next year. Clearly our defence is more of a worry, but I believe that a leaky defency is easier to sort out than a poor attack. Overall, I think everyone needs to calm down, accept that this season was only going to be one of stablisation, and hopefully we can push on next year. I would also like to ask the people who feel Jewell should be sacked as to who they would get in and get in who would get us promoted within one season as that seems to be the expectation!?
No you certainly are no robot!! Alot of what you say is true. I feel the damage was done and has been done by one particular person who has now left the club and some who are still here, things aren't ideal at the club but some of that damage will take time to be repaired and some of that damage is irreversible!! I feel we are far better placed than we were this time last year, we've made progress, not 'great' progress but progress, things could've been alot worse!! How people could think we could go in the space of a season from being a rubbish team with very few players and alot of players on high contracts to promotion challengers i don't know. For me getting rid of Jewell and bringing someone else in unless it's someone remarkable won't change any of that. I think next season people will start to feel differently because it's amazing how quickly people forget about many of the problems highlighted are forgotten when the team are doing well. Although that is unless people expect us to get automatic promotion.
I agree with a lot of your points JWM. It has not been the bright new start we all expected when ME and his millions came to Portman Road. A couple of years spunking money down the drain have got us nowhere and now the fair play rules are coming in we will likely spend less and offer less in terms of wages/transfer fees. The golden opportunity we had to advance with such financial clout behind us has failed. We have spent a lot of money for this division and yet have been passed by clubs who have a coherent plan on how to progress. Our policy of using the academy to add to the team is going nowhere with derisory offers being made and the youngsters feeling that they will be given a better chance elsewhere. It wouldn't matter one iota if we were a Cat 1 academy because there won't be too many young'uns who will look to Ipswich as a positive step in their development. The days of throwing a kid in at the deep end because he's deemed good enough have been replaced with sucking up to useless ****ers like Leadfuck in the hope he signs for us.
I admire your optimism but it is one that I and quite a lot of my fellow fans do not subscribe to. You can't just hang everything around Keane's neck! It wasn't his fault that we have shipped in 75 goals this season! It wasn't his fault that PJ used a strategy of signing mostly has beens, it wasn't keane's fault that we have used 4 different goalkeepers in the same season! I would love to have someone like Stevie Coppel come here to sort things out. I said that even before Keane arrived and I still think that he would do an incredible job in reviving our fortunes. As for Jewell, i'm afraid he is out of his depth tactically and naive in the transfer market. But time will tell.
PTC....sometimes...no, let me correct that, you are always so ****ing blinkered it is unreal....Jewell is a clueless ****...TBH you are not so far behind him if you still think he is ever going to get us any place close to the top of this division...! Today was as bad as we have been since keane first darkened our doors, it is not one result, we have been going backwards slowly for the past couple of months.! Jewell out, Clegg out, Evans sort it out.
I really don't know who to point the finger at. Is ME calling the shots or is it Clegg who's making a meal out of running a football club? All I know is that things are wrong from the very top of the tree and I want a change!!!!!!!!!!!!
Look guys, you have to thank ME for coming in and saving our club, for that I applaude him. The problem is that he (ME) has so far appointed totally useless managers that have moved us.....sideways..! He has a CE that knows less about football than PTC..! Evans needs to get shot of Clegg & get in a manager that is going to go back to what ITFC is good at, picking up players from abroad or from lower down in the leagues, on the cheap, invest in our youth system, give them a chance to learn, develope in & around the 1st team squad...If we know that is the plan for the next 3-5 years we will except that, be patient and stick with it..!
If we had lost today with the kids playing then it wouldn't have been so bad but to use players that won't even be here in the summer is just plain MAD! I would love to see Steve Coppel come here and sort out this mess.....
Thanks for that Hoopers. I hope your family are proud that you aren't blinkered at all and not the typical idiotic fickle football fan and are proud of your eloquent posts. Listen I don't think Jewell is the best manager out there and he has his faults like every other manager. But I've seen enough to at least think he should be given more of a chance.
Hmmmm, it will be interesting to see just how long Clegg & Evans are here once the Olympics are over this summer, this is a theory that could have an awful lot of Weight(Y) behind it...!
If you have a life please don't do this but if not, look back at alot of my previous posts and tell me how I know little about football? Much of what I say has come true over the past 2/3 years!!
Like someone said before, if we had played some of the kids today and lost we would not be as angry. At least you could say we were preparing for next year and could see that we are willing to give the youth a go and build a younger team for the future. As Hoppers says, if we knew there was a decent plan in place it would make results a bit more bearable than the whole 'reaching the prem at the earliest chance' ethos that keeps being rammed down our throats. **** me, if it would take relegation to get a clue about what's going on and how to move forwards then that may be a blessing in disguise. Recently promoted teams over the past few seasons have done very well in the championship without having big name, expensive players on their books.
PTC...You are most welcome.....when you finally realise that YOU are wrong & that an increasing number of us are right, we will accept your apology... Jewell is not even an average manager FYI.. Not sure what my family has to do with my posts, apology required please.!
Trouble is ptc that PJ is not showing us he has a plan for the future. Ignoring academy players and trying to persuade perrennial under-performers like Leadtwat to re-sign are not things the supporters want to see. At the end of the day Ipswich is OUR club and it is the supporters you need to keep happy. Not keeping the fans happy will lead to mutiny.
