Town boss Mick McCarthy and MD Ian Milne faced fans' questions at the Supporters Club’s AGM in Legends at Portman Road this evening, along with some of the club’s other heads of department.
Joining McCarthy and Milne were finance director Mark Andrews, club secretary and supporter liaison officer Sally Webb, director of sales Rosie Richardson, media manager Steve Pearce and Matthew Nicholson from Centerplate, the company responsible for Town's outsourced catering. BBC Radio Suffolk's Stephen Foster compèred.
"It keeps us on our toes and it was good,” Milne said afterwards. "It was a long evening but I think we all did well. I try and avoid being the one answering all the questions, but I seemed to get most of them, I think it comes with the job!”
During his half-an-hour question and answer session McCarthy faced criticism for the entertainment on show at Portman Road. He admitted he’s not currently happy with performances and that they’re not pretty but said that he and the players are working hard to improve matters.
The Blues boss reminded fans he turned things around when he took charge four years ago next Tuesday, but says the Blues are going through a tough time at present - although things should improve as players return from injury - and the team needs fans' support.
McCarthy, who says he is happy at Town and has no intention of moving on with 18 months left on his contract, hopes he can win back the support of fans who opted not to renew their season tickets or are staying away and reminded the 100 or so who attended that there weren’t many complaints about the style of football when Town reached the play-offs in 2014/15.
You can read more of McCarthy’s question and answer session with supporters as well as the later quizzing of Milne and the other department heads on the live blog on the TWTD Forum.
"We knew it would be lively, I thought Mick was great,” Milne said. The MD spoke more on the financial side of football and the changing climate of the Championship.
"We’ve talked before about the Premier League and it becoming a franchise league with those teams which go down will go back up. I think there’s a risk of that because of the money,” he warned.
"I think fans understand that but that doesn’t mean we still can’t get into the top six. My colleagues, Marcus and Mick and all the rest believe there’s absolutely every chance of getting back into the top six.”
Milne said the way the Championship has changed in the last two or three years has made things tougher for clubs without parachute payments. He says rather than spending an unsustainable sum in one season Town’s approach is more measured with player wages currently around £11-£12 million.
"I think the strategy is dictated by the Premier League and those teams that come down,” he added.
"I think that people accepted tonight that owners, including Marcus, are not going to spend £20, £30, £40 or £50 million a year.
"There are some clubs I know for certain, because they have told me, they’re having one go this year because they know they’re going to lose a lot of players at the end of the season and they won’t be able to do it in successive seasons.
"We don’t want that. We want to work to a budget, we want it to be businesslike and workable.
"As you heard, Mick is very responsive to that and that’s what we’re going to do. We’re not going to keep swapping managers and all the rest of it.”
McCarthy also answered questions on the sale of Daryl Murphy which he still believes was the right decision and says Town will look to strengthen up front in January with clubs having asked for fees well over the odds with the Blues up against it to making a signing at the end of August.
"There is a budget, you heard what Mick said,” Milne added. "We’ll go again within the budget in January.”
Away from Town, the Blues MD said he was pleased that the long-running dispute regarding QPR failing to keep to the Financial Fair Play rules in the 2013/14 season will be going to an arbitration process in March which the West Londoners having agreed to abide by and which may then impact upon other clubs such as Leicester and AFC Bournemouth.
"If you want to get clubs exercised talk about QPR. It’s very frustrating for those owners," he added. "I think it’s going to quite interesting what results come out next March.”