As Marcus Evans continues his search for a new manager, Town and England midfielder and current Blues U16s coach Kieron Dyer weighs up the pros and cons of the different profiles of boss from which the club’s owner will select the successor to Mick McCarthy.
I’m a fan so it’s an exciting time just waiting to see who the manager is. Also because I’m an employee of the club it’s very exciting, just seeing the mood at the club.
When Mick said he was going there were a lot of nervous people, as you can imagine, because new managers come in and sometimes they change a lot of the personnel.
But in last week’s interview Marcus said that the new manager is going to work with the staff that’s in place. I’ve got a lot of friends who work at the club so that was good news for them.
I’m looking forward to the announcement. I think the owner has said he’s very open-minded and a lot of names have been bandied about.
A lot of experienced names, a lot of names from the lower leagues, ex-Ipswich players and a lot of superstar ex-players who I was fortunate enough to play with and against. They’ve all got their positives and they’ve all got their negatives.
Ex-Ipswich players, Shefki Kuqi’s name has been mentioned and John McGreal and Tony Mowbray.
About a month ago I was fortunate enough to work with Tony. I went to Blackburn for three days, he gave me access all areas, I was in with all his team-talks, in with all his scouts and he basically let me see how he runs the club.
I played for him and his assistant Mark Venus at Middlesbrough for the last few games of my career, but just in that short time, two or three years, the improvement he’s made as a manager is outstanding.
The big positive for the ex-Ipswich players is that they know the club. They’d have a connection with the fans straight away.
The fans would be right on side, they know the club inside out, they know everything about how we like to play, how we like players coming through the academy. That would be a massive plus, that brings a feel-good factor with the fans.
When you hear the names Sol Campbell, Steven Gerrard, Frank Lampard and Scott Parker talked about as potential candidates a lot of fans are against it because of their lack of experience.
I’d be buzzing if someone inexperienced got the job, not just the Ipswich job but a job anywhere, speaking as a coach who is getting all my badges.
The FA are begging us to get our badges done because they want a new wave of coaches because in football currently there’s a merry-go-round of the same experienced coaches.
So, for a club, and I’m not just saying Ipswich, to give an inexperienced manager a go would be a breath of fresh air and hopefully get the new wave in.
For all the fans out there talking about inexperience, I think, for instance Shefki, Steven Gerrard, Frank Lampard, Sol Campbell or Scott Parker, they would all bring someone very experienced in with them.
There’s a lot of talk about Steven Gerrard going to Rangers and his number two is understood to be Gary McAllister, who has got tons and tons of experience. He worked under Gerard Houllier and Rafa Benitez at Liverpool if I’m not mistaken.
And, I haven’t spoken to Shefki, but I’m sure that would be one of his selling points, that he would bring in someone with experience as his number two or as a coach.
I’m very close to Craig Bellamy and he’s been linked to a number of jobs and there’s a good chance that maybe one day I’ll go with him to a club, but he’s always said we would have someone experienced with us as well.
I’ve heard people worry that the club would become ‘Frank Lampard’s Ipswich Town’ or ‘Steven Gerrard’s Ipswich Town’ but a lot of those players in that changing room grew up in the era of those players.
They’ve watched those players on TV, they’ve probably idolised those players. As an ex-player, I know that if I was in a changing room and a Steven Gerrard or a Sol Campbell came walking through the door, you’re going to be inspired, you’re going listen what they say.
Additionally, just having that kind of manager, the pull it would have for our academy would be massive. To get academy players to the club for a start and then to keep our top academy players because all these kids have idolised those players on TV.
And these players will have such a great standing in the game where if they go to a Man City or they go to Chelsea and want to take the top, top young players on loan, I think clubs will give them their top young players because that’s the attraction they have.
There are so many benefits to it, but obviously the negative is the inexperience. But in my first two jobs as a manager I would definitely have an experienced man alongside me.
There’s also a lot of talk about the likes of Nathan Jones, the Cowley brothers and other managers who are doing very well in the lower leagues and a lot of fans are keen on a manager like that.
Again, the positives are that they are flying at their current clubs, it’s like they’re doing their apprenticeships in the lower leagues, they’re learning and just waiting for their chance.
Paul Hurst at Shrewsbury’s doing a magnificent job, as all those I’ve mentioned are, and that kind of appointment would be exciting because, for me as a young coach, if you’re seeing that if you do well somewhere a bigger club will come in and reward you, that’s what you want. You want to be treated fairly and you want to be rewarded.
The negative regarding someone from the lower leagues is that the Championship is a completely different league, it’s a harder league.
And also, for example the Cowley brothers, when the going’s getting tough and you’ve got senior players at Ipswich who have probably achieved more in the game on the playing side, if it’s going wrong and they’re telling them certain things, the players might think, ‘Why should I listen to him? I know more about the game’. That happens in dressing rooms.
Obviously Jose Mourinho didn’t play football at the top level but he spent his apprenticeship years learning from Bobby Robson and Louis van Gaal.
As an owner of a club, it’s always a gamble to appoint a younger manager. Do you want to give someone a chance and take that gamble?
If someone is given the chance and he’s in over his head and Ipswich Town go down then we’ll all be devastated. You have to weigh up all the options.
There are also foreign managers to be considered. When Marco Silva came in and got the job at Hull and then at Watford I remember Paul Merson was very vocal, saying we should be giving these jobs to British managers.
But foreign managers, they have different ideas that players are open to and a lot of foreign managers have been very successful.
Do they underestimate the challenges of the Championship? I do think that can happen but equally I think that anybody who would be taking the Ipswich job will be doing their homework and will know everything about the club, they’ll be watching the Championship very closely.
Yes, there would be an element of risk but just because they’re foreign doesn’t meant they won’t know about the rigours of English football because a lot of foreign managers have come in and have got a great track record.
In terms of experienced managers, among those we’ve been linked to are Chris Coleman, Jaap Stam, Steve McClaren and the positive is that they’ve been there and done that, but the negatives are that they’re out of work because they failed somewhere.
They’re out of a job currently for a reason but they’ve had a lot of success at a lot of places they’ve gone.
If Jaap Stam had quit in pre-season he’d have been one of the most sought-after managers going. You move on a year and he’s gone from taking Reading to one kick away from the Premier League to where they are now in the league and he’s out of a job.
Steve McClaren’s had success, I’ve worked under Steve McClaren, he was a fantastic coach, I had him when he was Sven Goran Eriksson’s coach, he’s a fantastic coach, but he’s had mixed results as well. Chris Coleman was flying with Wales but has been sacked by Sunderland.
I’ve got nothing against experienced managers but for a young coach who is trying to get in the game like me it would be refreshing if someone younger is given a chance.
Our owner seems really open-minded, I don’t think he’s got anything set in stone. What I think is great about our owner is that Mick was under a lot of pressure for a few years, Paul Jewell was under pressure and I think in the end he had to go to Marcus and say, ’Look, enough’s enough, I have to go’.
Our owner will give people time. The problem with football at the moment is that you don’t often get time to build, you have to get results straight away because there’s a panic button.
So when people talk about Ipswich managers, such as Sir Bobby or George Burley, it’s very hard to have that time where you can build something as they did.
But the plus with the Ipswich job and part of the attraction is that our owner seems to give you time and seems to not bow to fan pressure or the pressure of results.
It could be someone is given time to build something, that they get their ideas and methods over and get everything up and running and have a project over a number of years at the club.
Mick had five years and was the longest-serving manager in the Championship, which says everything about our owner. I think that is fantastic.
Am I a candidate? Now is miles too early for me. I’m happy learning my trade, I want to keep learning my trade and hopefully when the new manager comes in, I’m working at the club and I can watch and I can learn.
I’ll be going to different clubs all over the country, I think I’m going to go to Germany at some stage to see Borussia Dortmund, to see how they work from their academy all the way up.
I’ve been lucky to see Blackburn. I’ll see some Premier League clubs hopefully, spend a few days, see how other managers work and just keep learning the trade. As they say, knowledge is power.
Dyer's autobiography Old Too Soon, Smart Too Late was published by Headline earlier this year and is available here.