Listening to Paul Jewell's post-match interview at Leeds, I felt a considerable level of sympathy for him. You can't predict the kinds of errors that led to all three of Leeds’ goals.

Jewell sounded simply exasperated with the implosion of his team from a winning situation. As TWTD rightly put it: ‎"It had been an unbelievable capitulation from the Blues who had been well on top against a Leeds side which had huffed and puffed but had shown few signs of getting back into the match through their own endeavours."

Sometimes in football, these things simply happen. Even Manchester United are not immune to the odd spectacular off-day, as we have seen this season.

However, what gives me a profound sense of concern and disbelief is that this kind of thing simply keeps happening to Ipswich. We have certainly showed some really excellent football of late. The first 70 minutes at Leeds, and the first 70 at home to Blackpool stand out, and may suggest that we are at least doing some things right.

But as Jewell seems to admit with alarming regularity during these post-match talks, games are played over 90 minutes, and if your team does not show sufficient ability, energy and most of all, determination for the whole duration of the game, you really are in trouble.

Ipswich have conceded more goals than any other team in the division, and almost every other team in the whole Football League. Jewell recently admitted that some of this was down to his inability to pick a settled defensive unit, week-in and week-out. In many ways, he is correct. I play at centre-back (at an admittedly low level) but I can certainly say that if you are a defender and you’re worrying about making a mistake and getting dropped next week, you WILL make mistakes, because your mind is not on each ball, or each attacker’s run as it comes. Nervous defenders defend badly (see Damien Delaney, Ivar Ingimarsson, and until recently also Tommy Smith).

But while one has to wonder about what exactly goes on during Ipswich defensive training sessions (if we do have them!!), this lack of decision-making and concentration cannot be totally blamed on our under-fire manager. Whatever you might think, any player who has made it into professional football must possess a certain inner drive to succeed, and a huge amount of experience, whether it be his youth career, reserve fixtures, or games at a lower of higher level.

Put simply, our players should all know better, and should be motivating themselves out of this. If you are a professional footballer playing at centre-back, you must surely be able to stay focused, be combative and make key decisions at important moments.

The current situation in which we as Ipswich fans find ourselves in is therefore somewhat of a dilemma: exactly how does one go about correcting poor term morale and boosting defensive concentration and aggression? Several answers spring to mind, but no single solution addresses all the issues.

It doesn’t look like Jewell has spotted any stand-out replacements who are either good enough or available for transfer at the right price. Similarly, it doesn’t look like whatever he is doing down at Playford Road is doing the trick either. Appointing a new defensive coach could re-invigorate this area of concern, but it looks like Jewell prefers to stick with his own men.

The last solution, sacking Jewell, would certainly please many of the commentators on the TWTD and local newspaper forums. This approach has certainly worked at Sunderland, and perhaps may be having an impact on QPR, and dare I say it, had a remarkable effect on our local rivals when they went down to League One.

However, for every Martin O’Neill, Mark Hughes and Paul Lambert, there are similar failures. Look at the situations at Forest (a club remarkably similar to Ipswich), or Preston last year under Phil Brown, for examples of an extended malaise. In addition, I do not believe that Mr Evans feels like he can sack Jewell, out of a fear of becoming known as a short-termist sacking club, rather like QPR were two years ago, or Leicester have been. I am almost certain that Evans has held on to Jewell because no right-minded young, ambitious manager will want to stake his career on managing such a club.

So, what to do? I’d like to hear people’s opinions, especially if they are not simply ‘sack Jewell’. We all know that this option is there (and that it may well be the right one in the long-term) but it just doesn’t look like Evans is going to do that right now, especially after his well-crafted PR-exercise dressed up as an ‘nterview’, as featured in last week’s match-day programme.

But something needs to change, and fast. In this day and age, it looks like football clubs are increasingly being run by non-football people, and presided over by businessmen as both owners and ‘chief executives’ (what the devil does that role mean, anyway? didn’t see Robson or Burley having one of those!).

Our needs are profoundly football-related right now, but if they are not addressed, then we may experience problems in the business of our club, too. It already looks like season-ticket sales will drop, and if the team also drops down to the third tier of football, the examples of Charlton, Forest, Sheffield Wednesday, Tranmere, Preston and even (shudder to think) Bradford, show that things may not get better until after a significant struggle. If Evans were jump ship, this would leave the club in significant debt.

Fortunately, we are not in this position yet. But ‘yet’ only works if things change. The need for a turnaround is mounting, but exactly how this is to be driven through is unclear right now. Personally, I think Evans gives Jewell another four to six weeks. If we don’t get two or three wins in that time, then this alarming slump in form, energy and supporter enjoyment absolutely HAS to end.

Contrary to many comments on this website, we do have a really good squad, and at times, we’ve played some brilliant football this season. Let’s just hope that this can be turned into more 90-minute spells, and less 20-minute collapses like the one that was witnessed on Saturday.

davekl12 added 17:10 - Jan 22 Great blog, definitely food for thought! The fact remains, how can Jewell be held accountable for countless defensive errors, they are professional footballers. I feel sorry for Jewell, but the bulk of his signings have simply been wrong. Why is Chopra sitting on the bench every week, forget about form, he's a forward with scoring instinct, how can sticking him on the bench improve his and our situation? Ipswich town FC are simply losing their identity, we need the likes of Holland operating behind the scenes..... Some inspiration, passion and most importantly confidence need to be instilled in these players..... Some nice friendly team bonding should be on the agenda. I don't think we'll be relegated, but I'm extremely worried with our current predicament.

0

tractorboy2434 added 17:15 - Jan 22 The blog was okay until you spoiled it by saying we do have a really good squad, sorry this is one of the poorest squads we have had for 20 years.
0

tractored added 17:44 - Jan 22 The reason concede so many goals isn't some freakish aberration or failing of defensive coaching, it is we have poor players. We don't have one good centre back, we don't have a proper right back, we have a young left back still adjusting to the step up in class, we only have a kid (who probably isn't up to it anyway) as the only truly defensive midfielder. Our midfield is old and the strikers have other issues. Evans needs to spend some proper money.

0

singtown added 19:04 - Jan 22 Good blog but can't agree the squad is good. Reputation of the players do not count anymore and the league table don't lie. if these professionals can't gel after playing and training for so long, u can't blame the fans for ranting. PJ has made some weird decisions and he is still making them! Why loan and train Reading's GK? Shouldnt our own boys ALB or RWright be given the chance to show that they can stand up and be counted? And this despite more urgent need to get a CB, RB & MF, the priorities are all wrong! We are still 4th from bottom bcos Notts F, Doncaster & Coventry have done slightly worse than us, but not too far away. A 4 pts advantage can be easily eroded, so we count ourselves lucky that they've also lost as much games as us but our luck may run out soon once they find their feet earlier than us. Conceding so many goals is also poor team effort, u can't simply blame defenders alone though responsibilities r higher. The squad is not working together & PJ needs to fix this quick before ITFC rooted at the bottom of the league. This would be PJ present to all fans in his maiden season in charge, exceeding all our expectations for sure, but for the wrong reasons....

0

alfromcol added 19:27 - Jan 22 Interesting blog. I disagree with some posters here. We do have a good squad, with one or two exceptions. To make the squad a very good squad we need 2 CBs and a RB. I am convinced that if we had had this from the start of the season things would have been much different. However, they weren't and they aren't. My biggest disappointment, apart from all the defeats, is the failure, for whatever reason, to put these deficiencies right. AS DurhamTownFan states we have had some good performances lately, for three quarters of a game. However, it is like my golf game, if it was over 14 holes I would be a scratch golfer.

0

budgieplucker added 22:15 - Jan 22 "You can't predict the kinds of errors that led to all three of Leeds’ goals." ? Otherwise some good points.
0

irishtim added 13:39 - Jan 23 Good squad? What r u drinking? Worst bunch ever & will take us down.
0

Southamptonblue added 14:02 - Jan 23 Unfortunately the problem is that it's all too easy to predict the errors that led to all three of Leeds’ goals, as similar errors seem to happen every week.
0

Ipswich24 added 16:27 - Jan 23 The only decent players that are worth keeping are JET, Cresswell, Edwards, Scotland, Drury, Carson and Hyam.
0

stiffshorts added 21:51 - Jan 23 what about the "independent" supporters club? Set up some years ago outwith the traditional supporters club as an alternative to the exact problems highlighted here??
0

stiffshorts added 21:53 - Jan 23 the above posted in error on this blog, sorry!
0

Vic added 15:10 - Jan 24 Thanks for a sensible blog. Not sure I'd say our squad is 'really good'; it's adequate and should be a good base to build on - surely the object at the start of the season. I'm with you regards to the time PJ has left; for him the next 8 days are utterly critical and will probably determine whether he has a future here. No signings - no future; loans - no future; poor signings - no future; successful signings - good future. He really doesn't have much margin for error does he now - he's in the last chance saloon.

0

DutchTownFan added 16:57 - Jan 24 We do have a good squad, apart from the defence. The only thing that's really missing is motivation!!!!! Who's supposed to sort that out, the manager? the coaches? Or should everybody just stick together and get behind the team, and that includes fans!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
0

jas0999 added 20:08 - Jan 24 PJ is a terrible manager. 2 wins in 16 - losing 12 demonstrates this. Only the deluded ME disagrees - oh and a few Jewell 'lovers' on here.
0

Pessimistic added 14:28 - Jan 25 Good blog Durham Town Fan and I say we must stick with Jewell for now. No point chopping and changing at this critical stage of the season.
0

warwickblue added 00:08 - Jan 26 Really good squad? Look at the TWTD fan ratings for the players this season. Most around the 4 or 5 mark, a smattering of 6 point somethings and not one player in the squad has reached the dizzy heights of 7. I think the current collection of players are the poorest we've had in recent memory.
0

Blogs 295 bloggers