Town boss Paul Jewell has admitted that he got his approach to recruitment wrong last year and needs to have a more patient outlook during this close season. The Blues manager signed 13 players either permanently or on loan during what was a busy summer, largely experienced senior pros such as Jimmy Bullard, Lee Bowyer, Ãvar Ingimarsson, Ibrahima Sonko and Nathan Ellington.
Jewell said: "I think certainly last summer we just trying to get whoever was available all of a sudden. We probably weren’t patient enough. If someone came on the market, we’d think we’d take him because he’s been [a good player].
"Look at Ãvar Ingimarsson, we took him. We took Lee Bowyer, we took Jimmy Bullard. Jimmy Bullard got Player of the Year last year and everybody wants you to take people.
"Maybe when you sit back you think that we’ve got to have more of a plan. We’ve got to try and target players earlier, which we have been.
"We’ve improved our scouting network, which is important, both home and abroad, and hopefully we’ll have more of a choice of players to choose from.”
The Blues boss is determined to bring success to the club: "My message is that I’m working as hard as I can. I love my job here and I’m fiercely proud that I’m manager of Ipswich and I really want to give the supporters something to cheer about.
"I understand the frustrations. Patience is a word which we ask people to use, probably at times it hasn’t been shown.
"The owner’s shown that he’s behind me. I want to repay the faith he’s shown in me and I want to repay the supporters because the supporters have always been good to me.”
However, he says success next season may equate to steady progress from this season’s lower mid-table finish rather than anything more tangible: "I hope next season is successful, but success might not always be measured in getting promotion.
"It might be, for argument’s sake, that we just finish outside but we’ve got a really good squad, a really good team and we just lack that one or two players to make the push [the following season].”
As for the season which comes to an end at Doncaster on Saturday, Jewell says his initial aim for the campaign was to finish much higher than where the Blues currently find themselves: "In November or December I would have settled for a mid-table finish, but I wouldn’t have settled for that at the beginning of the season.
"I want to be at the top end of the table, Marcus wants to be there, I want the players to want to be there and I’d love to be able to give these great supporters that in years to come.”