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Lambert: Bury and Bolton Situations Not Healthy For the Game - Ipswich Town News

Boss Paul Lambert says the financial struggles of Bury and Bolton Wanderers aren’t healthy for the English game and has praised Blues owner Marcus Evans for the way he subsidises the Blues.

Bury were expelled from the EFL on Tuesday, while Bolton, who Town beat 5-0 at the University of Bolton Stadium last Saturday, had their survival confirmed on Wednesday when their takeover by Football Ventures was finally completed.

"I said it last week, it’s not good for the English game with two clubs in a professional league finding themselves in trouble,” Lambert said.

"Bolton is obviously a different scenario but Bury have basically been put out of the league and have got to start again. It’s not healthy for the game.”

Do the situations at Bury and Bolton put Marcus Evans’s Town ownership into greater perspective, with Evans subsidising the club’s annual loss, which in the year to June 2018 was £5.2 million, a figure in line with most previous seasons?

"I think if you’re an owner you can never win, you can never keep everybody happy,” Lambert reflected. "If you spend £100 million people want you to spend £200 million, then they want you to spend £300 million.

"When that doesn’t happen and a club starts to fall and goes into these situations people say, ‘The owner’s not doing anything’. People forget.

"And that’s the great thing about Marcus, he’s kept the club going when you see a lot of clubs going to the wall.

"He’s only one investor, he’s only one owner, so it’s all his money. He’s spent a helluva lot of money in the years gone by and the football club’s got an owner who does subsidise it really well, and has spent a helluva lot of money on it and Ipswich has still got a football club.

"It would be absolutely horrendous, imagine this place without a football club. We’ve one team in the town, it would be catastrophic, it really would, so you can’t knock him for doing that.”

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