Some members of Roy Keane’s coaching staff will spend time looking at the way some other sports train in the new year on the recommendation of chief executive Simon Clegg.
While at pains to point out that manager Roy Keane is in control of all coaching matters at the club, Clegg says he has suggested that Town’s coaches might learn from sports that he worked with while chief executive of the British Olympic Association: "I have had conversations with a couple of coaches who may be going to look at some ways that other sports train over the rest of the season.
"I have identified some specific areas where particular sports are at the cutting edge of technology, whether it’s nutrition, exercise and physiology, whatever it might be.
"I think over the fullness of time some of the coaching staff will go and have a look to see whether what’s happening in those sports is applicable for what we might do at Ipswich Town.
"But what I don’t want to do is to articulate that too much because if we find ourselves at a competitive advantage, the last thing we want to do is share it with our competitors.”
Clegg says one of Britain’s leading sprinters joined him at a recent away match: "I had Darren Campbell, the Olympic gold medallist, come as my guest to the Cardiff game.
"Darren is now doing some work with the Welsh Rugby Union and a couple of other sports and with Manchester United and Arsenal, and those sort of links are there.”
Keane's coaching staff consists of assistant Tony Loughlan, fitness coaches Antonio Gomez and Simon Thadani, specialist skills coach Steve Foley, goalkeeper coach James Hollman, Bryan Klug and Chris Kiwomya, who work with the reserves and the U18s respectively, and Ian McParland, who joined the club recently on a contract until the end of the season.
Clegg says he is enjoying working with Keane and says he finds him somewhat different from the way he is usually portrayed in the press: "It is quite bizarre and the only thing I can take from it is that this tabloid image has followed him from his time as a player where he was a very hard player, there’s no going away from that.
"That followed him up to Sunderland. By his own admission Sunderland was his first managerial position, he was learning the ropes and he was on a steep learning curve. He’ll tell you that he’s still on a steep learning curve here, but all the time I think that you’re seeing the real Roy Keane coming out.
"He doesn’t suffer fools. He doesn’t like it when people ask him the same question. If you ask him a question you get a very honest and a very straightforward answer, but the journalists’ style of asking the same question again perhaps in a slightly different way to elicit a slightly different answer is not something which goes down well with him. Like leaving mobile phones on in press conferences.”
Clegg says that consistent with his statements during Town’s poor spell earlier in the season, Keane’s job has never been in jeopardy: "The manager’s not been put under any pressure by myself or Marcus. Quite frankly, he doesn’t need it, Roy Keane puts enough pressure on himself. The reason that we appointed him is that he’s a winner, he’s a person who is driven by winning.
"He’s not happy when we lose, he’s not happy when we draw when he feels we should win and actually he’s not necessarily totally happen when we win as long as we win with an optimum performance.
"He’s an individual who is driven by maximising every aspect of his life, so after the 3-1 win against Blackpool last week, which was a fantastic result, he was still frustrated because he thought it should have been five or six, which is just what you want in a manager.”
The chief executive says he’s confident that a corner has now been turned and foresees a climb up the table in the new year: "I am excited about the second half of the season. The last couple of games have been really good. I think they have given a massive boost of confidence to everyone, particularly the Blackpool game.
"We’re on a 10-game unbeaten run, we’ve only conceded two in the last five matches and we’re out of the relegation zone for the first time this season. People are very excited and very upbeat and who knows what’s going to be possible over the next couple of months?
"I am confident that you will see the club making significant progress up the Championship table between now and the end of the season.”