New manager Paul Jewell says that Town’s off-field stability was one of the reasons he took the job at Portman Road. The Liverpudlian, who was unveiled at a press conference yesterday, had difficult spells at Sheffield Wednesday and Derby, clubs which had boardroom issues during his time in charge.
Jewell said: "I think stability is a key thing. The Sheffield Wednesday and Derby scenarios didn’t go right for me. I do think there are mitigating circumstances in both, but I’m not here to pretend that things didn’t go badly there, they did.
"But I’ve learnt a lot from that. There’s no in-fighting at Ipswich, there are no boardroom squabbles, I don’t even think there’s a boardroom here!
"You’ve got a guy who is putting his money in and there’s one man who makes the major decisions and I’m going to work very closely with Simon.
"There are a lot of things that were going on off the pitch, politics which become tiresome and drag supporters down.
"We don’t want that," he continued. "We want supporters talking about the team and hopefully moving forward, rather than talking about this director or that director, or that used to happen in the old days. Let’s move forward and get people talking and excited about coming to watch Ipswich Town.”
Jewell was evidently impressed with owner Marcus Evans when he met him at his Dublin offices last Friday: "He’s obviously very ambitious, I nearly walked past him because, like everyone else, I didn’t know what he looked like!
"He’s invested a lot of time and a lot of energy and a lot of money in football. But he knows that things take time.
"I don’t think the Ipswich Town public have anything to worry about with the owner because he’s 100% committed to getting success here.”