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Lambert: You’ll Find Out Shortly What’s Going to Happen and it Could Be Really, Really Good - Ipswich Town News

Town manager Paul Lambert says fans will find out about the club’s plans for the future very shortly and that he believes it will be exciting with young players, fans and also the local media at the heart of the approach going forward.

Lambert has referred to the plans or a "strategy going forward" on a number of occasions but says he can’t yet make them public.

"I can’t at the minute,” he said when asked for details. "I know what’s roughly going to happen. As I said before, I think it's exciting for the club. It could be really good.

"The young players are going to be important to it, the support is going to be vital to it, you guys [the media] are going to be vital to it.

"I think you’ll find out shortly what’s going to happen and I think it could be really, really good.

"Maybe the club goes in another direction from where it’s been going in the past and most of your team will be your own [rather than loanees].

"That’s the great thing about it and you have a helluva lot of young lads trying to make an impression on it and I think that in itself is exciting because with young kids sometimes you just don’t know what you’re going to get.

"But what you do get is an incredible excitement from them and if they can bounce off the supporters and if the supporters keep doing what they’re doing and give them that time, which they’re doing.

"That’s why the kids are playing as well as what they are and there’s no fear factor because there's no criticism towards them, there's no animosity towards them if they make a mistake, there’s not really any jeering them or anything like that, they let them go and play and they’ll certainly need that.

"I think it’s there for everybody to see that when they have that freedom they’re a really good side.”

Asked whether owner Evans is set to back him in the summer, he said: "He’s been brilliant, he’s been absolutely brilliant. We have really good conversations, we have laughs, we have some words, which is normal, and we get on really well that way.

"Albeit that doesn’t mean you’re going to be in this job for life, it’s a professional business you’re in, but I get on well with him, and he’s done great for this club over the years.

"He wants to maybe change the club in a different direction which I’m pretty sure will become clear really soon.

"But the club is in a really good place albeit that results are no way near good enough, but we have played really, really without getting our rewards and I think that’s apparent for everyone to see.

"I think the support the club has got is definitely overwhelming, that does my head in because they’ve been absolutely brilliant for us because they’re giving everybody time to play, the young kids time to play because they don’t need to maybe be criticised.

"But I think everybody recognised they’re playing well and that’s why the crowd are behind it, and they see everything that’s going on. There’s so much good here that this could be unbelievable, in a few years this could be all change.”

He says he speaks regularly with Evans, who has taken a more hands-on role this season: "I speak to him most weeks. He comes up here a few times a month, which is great.

"As I said, that’s why I know roughly what’s going on. We’ve had some good meetings, I know exactly where the club’s at, money-wise what it can do, what it can’t do, and we find middle ground to see where we can take it.

"We won’t be able to go and spend a helluva lot of money, but that for me is not the be all and end all, it’s having a structure here to play and play the way we want to play and play the type of football we want to play for the support to get behind it and invest a helluva lot of time into our players, the young ones here that are coming through.

"They’ll give you so much excitement. And, as I’ve said before, if that crowd can keep the way they are then it could be anything it wants.”

While the young players will be key to the approach, has he sought to remind Evans that he will need to add some more experienced players to his squad going forward?

"We’ve already spoken about that and have said that, if Judgey gets done and a few others that would just make [us more] streetwise. It’s about trying to get that blend.

"But the great thing is that the majority [of the players] will be our own, that’s the great thing, that’s the beauty about it, they’ll be our own and hopefully moulded into a way of playing that’s the way we play.

"The team go on pre-season and I think this pre-season will probably be one of the most vital ones in their whole time to get them into that way of playing.”

Has the job always been more than a half-season project? "I don’t know, I think because we’ve come in and maybe changed the football style and play a different way from what had happened before and have brought in one [so] that the identity of the club is maybe going to come back.

"I’ve said I’ve never been a big fan of five or six loans coming in because those guys do their best, but you’re developing somebody else’s players when you’ve got a really good young set of guys here, so why not give them a chance?

"You’ve got to give them a chance otherwise there’s no point in having an academy, just scrap the academy route and keep the money.

"I believe they’re good enough, they’ll make mistakes like everybody else and some might go into a shell, but we try to keep them in that positive frame of mind of the way they’re going to play, and I think the crowd have helped them I really do.

"I think the crowd have helped the guys express themselves because they’ve not once got on their backs, even on Saturday when they sang that song [Bob Marley’s Three Little Birds] at the end it was just unbelievable, I think the support see the difference in it, and they will win games that’s for sure.”

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