“I needed a little bit of breathing space here and for them to just give me a little bit more time. I know exactly what I’m doing here, I’m very clear in what I want to achieve here and with the players and the attitude and the overall plan. I was very, very clear on that.”

Magilton walked out of one press conference, while a journalist was banned for writing a denied story regarding secret meetings with a select group of players. Eventually the manager stopped attending the pre-match meetings with the media entirely with new assistant boss John Gorman taking over. Should he have handled things differently?

“Probably,” Magilton admitted. “I just felt that at the time they were being totally unreasonable. I just felt at times there was no need for it.

“I was always very personable, I was always very approachable and I thought they abused that and I thought ‘Well, if you’re abusing that, don’t forget I’ve got two young sons who are living and going to school in Ipswich and a wife that’s living there, so please be respectful.

“‘I understand that’s the nature of the beast, but listen, take a little bit of common courtesy and a little bit of decency and reflect on that. If you want to have a conversation with me privately, no problem’.

“All that was unnecessary in my opinion. I probably went over the top at times but then curbed it back in again. Again, that was all learning on the job, that was part and parcel of it. I thought I deserved a little bit of benefit of the doubt, at least a little bit.”

There was also talk of fallouts with players: “I thought that was all sideshow stuff. I thought people picked up on that and got totally distracted by it.

“My relationship with the players was always very honest and very personal. And by personal I mean, one-to-one.

“People don’t talk about the things that you do for them. People only talk about ‘Oh well, he’s done this, he’s fallen out with whoever’.

“But it’s the other thing. I was a family man. As a captain I was very much open, very much sociable, very much dealt with humour, dealt with banter, dealt with all of that, so I brought those attributes into my managerial role.

“Falling out with players, of course you do. But there are no grudges, you don’t fall out with a player and say ‘Right, that’s it’. There was none of that, I was brought up at Liverpool, I had a four-year apprenticeship there and I’ve seen more rows you could speak about.

“So there wasn’t a row after every game, far from it. If there were disagreements it was done solely, ‘OK, well let’s have another discussion about that, no problem’.

“I dealt with one-to-ones, I was trying to bring the ‘Ipswich way’ into these men in a way where I was dealing with them personally. I was having conversations with them, I was talking about the club, I was talking about how we want things done.

“People that were recruited were largely recruited not on their ability, which is important, of course, but on their character, their personality, imposing the character and personality on a day-to-day basis.

“So there was a sideshow attraction, I never, ever, ever would have been distracted by that or fallen out with players over any length of time, it was done, it was dusted, it was said, it was man to man and it was ‘Right, let’s move on from this’. There was never anything personal, never. Heat of the moment stuff, it happens.”

There were also claims of a fallout with Bryan Klug, who was moved from his role as first-team coach to a new head of football development position after Gorman’s appointment as assistant manager in January 2009.

Explaining Klug’s switch of job, Magilton said: “Bryan was sidelined because, if Bryan is 100 per cent honest, he was never comfortable in that pressure cooker situation.

“Bryan was a fantastic development coach, one of the best I’ve ever worked with, no question about that.

“But Bryan was sidelined for other reasons and those other reasons were that he was going to have a massive influence on what was going to happen thereafter. Bryan’s role changed but it changed, in my opinion, for the betterment of the club.

“That was the only reason that Bryan was sidelined. I then went to John Gorman because John was used to that, John had vast, vast experience, far more experience in those sorts of situations than Bryan.

“But Bryan was going to be utilised in a totally different way where he was going to bring added value in his new role. There was never anything about Bryan being brushed to be one side. If that’s what was said then that’s utter bunkum, it was always about trying to make the club better.”

Famously, the end of Magilton’s time at Town came two days after the Blues’ 3-2 derby victory over Norwich City at Portman Road, still the club’s last win against their deadliest rivals.

It seems certain that the decision to change the manager was made prior to that game, however, the 1-1 draw at Bristol City on the previous Monday having meant the Blues - 12 points off the play-offs in ninth - could no longer make the play-offs.

Magilton says his sacking wasn’t something he was expecting: “There was major surprise. There was surprise at his decision. I knew that I would be having conversations with him at the end of the season, I knew that, so I was prepared for that.

“I wasn’t prepared for being sacked after the derby win, and I felt we played really well in the Norwich game.

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