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Thread | For those going tomorrow, wouldn't it be great if we sang our hearts out for MM
at 17:44 3 Feb 2017
for at least the first 20 minutes or so, to give the boys a fantastic lift, and for us to take some responsibility for supporting the club we say we allegedly follow? Any fool can sing when they are winning in the good times, but it takes character and strength and bravery to support them when they are struggling. I remember the North Stand singing "Johnny Lyall's Blue and white army " for 20 minutes in the 93-94 season when things looked bleak. It was pretty awe-inspiring.
It's just that so many of the fans go to games with the specific intention of not getting behind the team or being supportive. It's as if they have given up on the team and want them to fail so that it justifies the abuse of MM. I think it is shameful for so -called fans to behave like this. I am not saying the league position is the fans' fault but I do think that being a supporters means doing your best to support the team through thick and thin - as we are in a relegation fight and the players in the main are giving 100%. |
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Thread | So, MM gets sacked, Evans goes. What happens on Day 1 of the new era?
at 16:19 2 Feb 2017
Given that the new owner - if anyone could be persuaded to take on an extremely unattractive proposition in the first place - would face the following:
- having to pay Evans to transfer his 85% shareholding in the club to the new owner which I imagine would cost at least several million (if not tens of millions) not only for the shares, but also to buy the debt which in asset worth - at least on paper - around £80m+
- having to stump each year to cover the operating deficit of about £5-6 million, just to keep the club afloat, and before even thinking about buying new players
- no decent players that might be sold to raise additional sums (they have all been sold already, with the possible exception of Bishop and Dozzell)
- crowds of around 14,000 or so - and even if there was an increased interest in the club following a new owner and manager, to say 16,000, these gates are not sufficient to compete
- any decent new manager taking over a team like Ipswich in their current state would want at least several million - if not a lot more - to spend
- so the new owner would probably have to make available in the region of £15 to £20m up front, and then tens of millions over the next years, with absolutely no guarantee of any return on that investment or success.
Who is this potential investor? Does he even exist in the real world?
Then consider this versus the current position - an owner who subsidises the losses each season to allow the club to exist, and a manager who in the last two seasons with NO MONEY came 7th and 6th.
Yes, the current position is not good, morale is dire and the performances poor.
But I am just suggesting that the grass is not always greener. Many fans simply look at amputating the leg that is slowing them down, without realising that with only one leg they won't be able to run at all. |
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Thread | Isn't much of this negativity mainly a reaction to 15 years in the Championship?
at 11:52 23 Jan 2017
Objectively, we have had worse managers than MM - based on results - in the Evans era: both PJ and RK were looking likely to take us to Division One, and neither got anywhere near the play offs, or even 7th, as did MM. Both had a lot more money to spend - e.g. Bullard, Chopra, Bowyer etc. and yet at times the football and performances were very poor. RK didn't win a match for about the first 13 or 14 games of the season I recall.
In other words, objectively, MM has achieved a lot more with a lot less than his two predecessors - both of whom, but particularly RK, did a lot of harm to the club by mismanaging key players, and selling the likes of Rhodes when they could have been retained.
MM as we know has lost Mings, Cresswell and Murphy (and also Tommy Smith and a number of other key players through injury) and has not been able to replace them with anything other than average to below average players. That is not his fault. It is caused by Marcus Evans refusing to make the transfer revenue available to MM to buy quality.
And yet.....despite some flickers of irritation (e.g. the minor altercation with fans and RK after a home match that led partly to his dismissal), neither RK nor PJ faced the barrage of abuse and criticism at most matches from large sections of the support, even when the team was in the bottom four.
Yet MM is currently 14th - having come 7th and 6th in the previous seasons - and is getting some serious abuse, as are a number of his players. Crowds are also down by several thousand as compared to the RK and PJ era.
My point is that, even taking into account poor performances and some sterile football, MM is being treated worse by many fans than either RK or PJ, despite having achieved more.
Most Ipswich fans are not unreasonable - although of course we have our moronic/zombie element, as Sir Bobby knew only too well - so it seems to me that what is behind all of this is a mixture of immense frustration at the 15/16 years in the same division, and the continued erosion of trust and good will between the club's owner/senior management and the fans. In other words, MM is getting it in the neck for the fact that he took over later than the previous managers, and the hope and goodwill factor is now almost extinguished.
I do not believe that sacking him will put us in a better position. What manager will do better with no resources or experience of getting teams promoted?
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Thread | Why should Evans put anymore of his money into the club at all?
at 14:01 20 Jan 2017
It's often puzzled me why a large number of our supporters take the view that Evans is somehow obligated not just to spend millions of his own money each season on the club just to balance the books, but to also make available further millions year on year for managers to spend on transfers and wages (without any guarantee whatsoever, or even likelihood, that this will provide a return on his investment).
It's his money, he's earned it, and he can do what he likes with it. Numerous fans here are saying they won't spend anymore of their own money to watch the club or buy season tickets. Yet they expect Evans to cough up millions, year on year.
If I was Evans, I would be doing exactly the same thing. I would have lost faith in giving managers millions, like Magilton, RK and PJ, which nearly saw the club relegated; and I would see that MM has finished higher (ie 6th and 7th) without money to spend. I would be giving him support now, and backing him, because his track record is better than any of the other managers we have had in recent history in terms of getting promoted; and I would be prepared to continue to underwrite the club's losses of several million each season and make some limited further sums available for players and wages. |
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Thread | Some (hopefully) objective thoughts
at 14:20 18 Jan 2017
Taking a step back from the carcass of last night, I have tried to think fairly about the current position. Clearly, there are a lot of unhappy people - but is sacking MM and regarding the current position as a crisis actually a reasonable view?
We are currently mid table, and are likely to end up mid-table. Not good enough, sure, but equally hardly a disaster - given that in past seasons we have been in the bottom four. The football is often average to poor, but equally at times there have been goals and we have (in Dozzell and Lawrence) some exciting players. We are not in a relegation fight and there are a number of teams below us who have played worse this season. MM has sold many of his best players - Cresswell, Mings, Murphy to name a few - and has not had any real freedom to replace them. That is not his fault - it is the owner's choice.
That choice is no doubt influenced by the fact that Evans is already subsidising out of his own pocket the club's deficit of about £6m a season, and in the past got badly burnt by PJ and Keane in terms of wasting millions on players with the consequence of almost getting the club relegated. In MM's first season, he saved us from relegation. Then in the last two seasons we got to the semis of the play offs and last season came 7th. This is better than any of the previous managers managed to do - all of whom had significantly more money to spend. It is also consistent with a manager who - in the past, admittedly - had some success: taking up Sunderland and Wolves from this very division, and managing at a World Cup.
That was then, this is now, of course, and although no one complained when the same tactics produced nearly 30 goals for Murphy, at present MM is not helped by his cautious tactics and preference for playing predictable football and formations - and a number of his signings simply haven't worked out.
More fundamentally, he is also not helped at all by the club's senior management: we never see Evans, and the fans can't relate to him, or understand his aims, hopes and ambitions as I am sure many could do with Sheepshanks. We get occasional sound bites from a line up of puppet mouthpieces - think Clegg, Milne and co - but none of them communicate effectively, or seem to understand the fans' frustrations: that 15 years is too long to have been in this division and we want more than blue paint on the turnstiles, and hollow platitudes about blindly supporting the manager, whatever.
My point is that the evidence shows that MM is probably a reasonably competent manager at this level - as his record shows. The fans' frustrations are aimed at him - but whoever was appointed would struggle under the current management. Magilton, Keane and PJ all had more money, but fared less well than MM at Town. Criticising the manager repeatedly at matches undermines him further in front of the players, and booing players is counter-productive. The real issue in my view is Evans and the culture at the club. Unless and until that is changed, and he starts to communicate with the fans properly and genuinely, and makes money available for the club to compete seriously, any change in manager at the moment is akin to re-arranging deckchairs on the Titanic.
[Post edited 18 Jan 2017 14:25]
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