Evans Backs McCarthy and Outlines Five-Point Long-Term Strategy
Friday, 30th Dec 2016 06:00

Town owner Marcus Evans has given his backing to manager Mick McCarthy and outlined the five-point, “sustainable and consistent” long-term strategy he believes will provide the Blues with “the best chance of promotion out of the Championship” in a lengthy column for today’s match programme.

Evans says he has every confidence that McCarthy will get the Blues back on track, despite the disappointing first half of the season.

“No one is more frustrated about that than Mick and the players and no one is working harder than Mick, his staff and the players to turn it around,” Evans writes. “Mick is vastly experienced and I’m confident he can get us progressing again.”

He adds: “Plans for the club to move forwards are always at the front of my mind.

""This has been a tough season so far, and, no excuses, we haven’t lived up to our potential with results and on occasions performances being below the standards of the last two seasons.

“That said, I am not the only one who has seen bright points and I believe if we follow the strategy outlined in this article then we will not be that far away from competing, once again, at the upper end of this league.”

The Blues owner, who is entering the 10th year since his takeover, says Town are competing on a “non-level playing field” with eight Championship clubs with parachute payments following stints in the Premier League and others having the benefit of very substantial - if often temporary - funding from their owners.

“My view, based on the finances available to us compared to those with parachute budgets and the small group with, often short-term, huge owner investment, is for your club to maintain a sustainable and consistent strategy, which I firmly believe provides a foundation each season for a promotion challenge,” Evans continues.

His five points are a “significant financial commitment to the Academy”, providing a sustainable and competitive squad salary budget, making funds available annually to buy younger players who can be developed, a stable management team and producing a side which will play “attractive and exciting football”.

You can read Evans’s column, in which he goes into each of these points in greater detail, in full on the club site here.

Photo: TWTD

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tractorboybig added 10:00 - Dec 30 usually when a chairman or owner gives the manager this kind of backing, the axe falls within hours.
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itfchorry added 10:01 - Dec 30

Today's Sun -

McCarthy -

Some Ipswich fans are sick of me.
There's a SMALL minority who turn up to
be negative.
They are bored of what I do and what I say,
how I look. But the majority want to
be positive.

Absolutely deluded -

Just go - you have lost the fans and your
position is untenable.

You are hanging on for some vague idea
that you can turn it around.

McCarthy Out
Evans Out

Bob7881 added 10:03 - Dec 30

Sad sad times indeed a dodgy owner and clueless manager a recipe for complete disaster.
Sheepshanks if you ever read comments on this site id love to meet you face to face and tell what a complete useless arsehole you are. You and you alone are responsible for the demise of the legacy the Cobbold family and Sir Bobby built. You totally cocked the finances of the club and sold us to a corporate name to be used and abused. ITFC has lost its identity and lost touch with the fans remember Evans a club is nothing without fans sadly everything you do seems to alienate the most important people THE FANS. One final point lets be honest isnt this the way with football fans all over the world. Money has ruined football those in the game today are just greedy parasites I.E Alladyce and Palace fall over themselves to give him a job. Personally i hope China wrecks English football and buys up the whole circus so we can get our national game back.

Bob7881 added 10:03 - Dec 30

Knightsy added 10:09 - Dec 30

Five Point plan, I want to see a Five Year plan.

1.M.E wants to invest in the Academy, that's good but MM hasn't got a nailed down academy youngster playing with in the team week in and out.

2.Loan Fee's other than Lawrence who's worth having at the club who is unlikely to be signing for us anytime soon. The signings of Conor Grant, Jonny Williams (unlucky though) Leon Best all hasn't worked out. We wasted £4 Million on fees and wages.

3. Going back to Team, MM won't change the way he managers the team. Selection is a Joke.

Only Players in my opinion that brings anything to the team is, Bart and Webster, the others would struggle to get into any other championship team, as well as a league one side.

McGoldrick isn't the same player because of injuries, Freddie being played out of position.

The coaching is also got to be looked at.

4. Pricing

Why would anyone go to a game or buy a season ticket, when we're one of most expensive clubs charging our loyal fans to watching this cr@p.

The Club shot itself in the foot after last season dross football, in the 2nd part of the season, and then up the season ticket prices.

For Christ sake give something back to the fans.

5. Five year plan.

We need need to see the young blood coming into side week in and out, the last time we had that was under Joe Royle.

We need a year on year plan from ME and the Club, under Sheepshanks even though he screwed up towards the end of his time at the club, at least we knew the clubs plan for the next year or so under him.

Michael11 added 10:11 - Dec 30

Burying your head in the sand and ignoring the blatantly obvious problems and continuing to do the same thing is basically his strategy then? What a load of rubbish. We will be relegated to League One before we ever get close to being a Premier League team. Who cares about the academy? He'll still drop the young lads after every good game they play for all his little favourites anyway.

Gcon added 10:13 - Dec 30

Sacking the manager is really just palliative care for this dying club, another round of chemo to extend life and reduce the pain. It buys the owner a bit more time and deflects the fans attention towards a renewed hope, rather than question the direction of the club.

The real problem is both the owner and the system.

The club is essentially run by accountants for our faceless owner, both for the financial benefit of his corporation and in the hope that one day we get promoted on a shoestring and he can reap the rewards. There is no passion and there is no one with football experience within the management. There is a complete disconnect between fans and ITFC Ltd.

He is however bang on when he talks about the disparity between FFP and parachute payments. FFP is a joke and seemingly disregarded by many clubs - not by us. The parachute payments are just impossible to compete with.

I am personally a big fan of McCarthy however I accept that it could soon make sense for him to move on. These next two games should probably dictate his future. He has an impossible task in trying to gain promotion with no financial support, and sooner or later that takes it's toll on a manager. I admire his unwavering focus on trying to achieve as many points as we can given the restraints. Unfortunately it doesn't make for the most appealing football. The owner should have supported him in the season after we made the playoffs, as he had proven himself at that point and with a little support we could and should have progressed.

ME's points all make sense but beneath the smokescreen he's simply justifying his stance that he will not support managers financially, in the way that all our competitor's owners will.

All good, experienced managers will shy away from a job offer at ITFC, they have seen the conditions that MM has worked under and they won't fancy another fail on their CV. That means selecting an up and coming manager - can we trust this management to make the right decision? I'm not convinced.

bedsitfc added 10:18 - Dec 30 All very well spending on the academy but the style of play has to be consistent I have seen academy teams play very good football, passing and moving yet they move up to first team and it's a different style that they have to learn
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VulpineBlue added 10:29 - Dec 30 I've read the full article. Cautious owner, cautious manager. No buccaneering spirit. Nothing will change. No renewal on my part next year. Life's just too short to watch the current outfit.
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wherescounago added 10:37 - Dec 30 Well that's it as far as any hope of challenging for promotion is concerned. As long as this idiot has the purse strings and the other idiot is in charge of the team we are doomed. League 1 here we come!!
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yun added 10:38 - Dec 30 It seems obvious that Marcus Evans' is happy for ITFC to remain in the Championship indefinitely. As previously stated, if 'hoping you might just get into the play-offs' is the owner's definition of ambition, you know you're in big trouble.
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ArnieM added 10:46 - Dec 30 Well at least there's a plan. Pity this wasn't communicated to the fans at the START of the season.
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BlueSmith94 added 10:54 - Dec 30

I have read the full article and he makes one very important point about financial fair play, it doesnt work. With teams like Newcastle and Aston Villa having alot of money in the form of parachute payments make it hard, not just for us but other teams in the league.

Its good he is investing in the youth acadamy, we have a great acadamy producing good players, just wish we had a manager that would play them.

Marcus has learnt from his mistakes with Keane and Jewell, he spend loads of money on player fees and wages and didnt sell them off for nearly the same amount. Its good he has learnt from this, time and time again we see huge transfer fees for players and it doesnt work, so we find ourselves out of pocket.I dont think its a fact he doesnt want to spend it, he is spending not so much but more wisely...

I also like the ideas of buying up and coming players from the lower league, with the likes of Webster, Creswell and Mings all coming from lower leagues for low fees. The danger with this is we become a selling club, however on the flib side, we could use the money to help the acadamy and bring in other up and coming players for the squad.

The fact us fans have been calling for Evans to speak out, he has now done so and speaks alot of sense about the club and the league.

I will be going to the game tonight, and like every game get behind the players and support them. I will never boo my team during or after the game. I am not saying other fans shouldnt boo, thats up to them. At the end of the day it is my club, and I support them no matter what, through tick and thin.

COYB!! Happy New year everyone!!

VulpineBlue added 10:59 - Dec 30 ArnieM- Dead right, I'd have not renewed and would have rather made a donation to charity rather than buy a ticket I now have no intention of using. I posted early on that I felt that this years season tickets had been sold on false promises. I don't trust a word any more.
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Pilgrimblue added 11:00 - Dec 30

Well said tallguy. It's clear from all the posts (lost count of all the ups i've made!) that ME isn't listening or cares. My grandchildren go missing when I suggest we go to PR whereas at their age I would've been chomping at the bit.
Sad to say that the only recourse for us is to vote with our feet and hope that a couple of bad performances will bring MM and ME to their senses.

Razor added 11:02 - Dec 30

Such depressing reading----full of excuses and no acknowledgment of the current crisis, and it is a crisis, at our great club.

Concentrate on the academy---when did we last have a good run in the FA YOUTH cUP?

One example of how this club is run----if you decide to go to footy on match day the club charges an extra £2 per ticket by way of thanks-----JUST PLAIN STUPID AND CRAZY!!

Our great club is slowly dying at the moment and the owner comes out with this rubbish--amazing, just amazing.

u2itfc added 11:04 - Dec 30 For fans of a certain age - in the words of old Mr Grace - "You're all doing very well..."
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Bergholtblue added 11:06 - Dec 30

His five points are:
1. a “significant financial commitment to the Academy”
I accept this. ME does invest heavily in the Academy. Unfortunately we don't appear to be reaping any dividends with regards to having 'homegrown' players in the squad. I notice there is no longer a mention of the goal of having a certain % of players in the first team buy a declared deadline.

2. Providing a sustainable and competitive squad salary budget
We may have a sustainable salary budget (providing ME ploughs in £6 million every year), but is it competitive? MM had just announced we wouldn't be able to keep Lawrence when the season ends.

3. Making funds available annually to buy younger players who can be developed. Two notable figures here are Cresswell and Mings Neither lasted five minutes before being sold on at an inflated fee. Webster may soon to be added to that list after just one season with us. Who else could be added?

4. A stable management team
Well we seem to have that.

5 Producing a side which will play “attractive and exciting football”
This one is still 'work in progress' obviously. I can't remember the last time we played attractive and exciting football! Probably when we were still under Sheepshanks and Magilton.

Didn't renew my season ticket this year for several reasons but have lost all interest now and finding other things to do with a Saturday afternoon. The longer this dross keeps being dished up the harder it will be to rekindle my desire to return. I do fear that Town may have lost me for good.

alfromcol added 11:10 - Dec 30 Forget about clubs with parachute money, we can't perform and win against those that have never had parachute money. Another load of waffle drafted by the Marcus Evans PR team and simply signed off by Evans.
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superbob added 11:12 - Dec 30 Let me start with this, I think ME is full of S#@T.......however his 5 steps would make sense if he had a young innovative manager who could actually coach players to pass to each other. With the current management team his plans make no sense at all!
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superbob added 11:16 - Dec 30 Bournemouth competed just fine with a decent manager!! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014%E2%80%9315_A.F.C._Bournemouth_season#In
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itfcjamieb200 added 11:24 - Dec 30

Marcus Evans outlines 5 point plan which will be available in today's program .
The plan outlines the use of more academy players and fast flowing football and how MICK is apparently the right man ðŸ˜³ðŸ˜³ðŸ˜³.
In our opinion this stinks of bullsh** .
Take ainsley Maitland Niles for example he came in at the start of last season attacking and taking players on by the end of the year he was going backwards and becoming a Douglas !
And this has been seen countless times , mick ruins players careers so why would any academy player want to player under him also MICK will never include any of these players because he has players such as Jonathan Douglas who he claims are 'undroppable ' and key men ðŸ˜©.
Also he talks of attacking football something we are yet to see at Ipswich under MICK McCarthy !
So , does Marcus Evans even know about our club or watch our team or is he just clueless ðŸ˜³.

Ipswich24 added 11:32 - Dec 30 It is fair enough you talking about buying young players like Ward and Webster and developing them. To finally sell them on. But look in-front of your eyes MICK MCCARTHY is the wrong man to develop and play the exciting brand of football you want. WAKE UP EVANS!!!!
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Lightningboy added 11:40 - Dec 30 The guy is deluded - we will not play attractive attacking football under McCarthy. WAKE UP MAN!
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OldClactonBlue added 11:58 - Dec 30 The strategy has merit. But it isn't a plan. A plan has targets, metrics by which performance can be measured. I don't see any of that. We need change! #We want our Ipswich back
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