Former academy coach Alan Lee has lifted the lid on life working at Town during the latter years of the Marcus Evans era, branding it an “unprofessional environment” with “no accountability throughout the club”.
Former striker Lee returned to the Blues as an academy coach in 2013 but moved on in 2018 as his frustrations with life at Town grew to the extent where he hated working there.
"You just started to feel that working in the academy, I thought it was a very unprofessional environment,” he said in part two of his Blue Monday-TWTD podcast.
"There was so much going on, the behaviours, a lack of discipline, from coaches. Standards.
"Everyone was trying to go on every course to try and get as many qualifications as they could. Everyone was trying to show that tactically they can work with the first team and win games.
"Very few people would actually do a bit of work one-on-one with players. Every decision was short-term, no one was making long-term decisions for the good of the football club and I felt it had taken over the club.
"There was no support there. I started hating working there and I could see in [former manager] Mick [McCarthy] that the stress built because he didn’t deserve the treatment he was getting. And he wasn’t getting support from the club.
"Ultimately, I remember the day it was sorted out. He had the meeting with [former owner] Marcus [Evans] and his contract wasn’t renewed or whatever they said, it was mutual.
"He came in the next day and he looked five years younger and I realised actually that was the best thing for him. He just had this weight off his shoulders. He was carrying everything.
"It was a mad time to work at the club. You could see everything going, it was like a car crash in slow motion, like the Five-Point Plan and this idea that we’re going to stroke it around at the back.
"I can remember thinking, ‘I’ve got to get out of here’. I had very little respect for the people I was working with, or most of them certainly.
"In the space of two years we lost Mick, Terry Connor, Andy Liddell [fitness coach], Malcolm Webster [goalkeeper-coach], Simon Milton [director of academy sales/player liaison], Steve McGavin [head of academy recruitment], James Scowcroft, Titus Bramble, Steve Foley, Ben Pugh, Duncan Wheeler [who were all coaching in the academy], sorry if I’ve missed anyone.
"We’d lost so many people you could depend on to do their job for Ipswich Town. They didn’t want to go and work for the first team, they didn’t want to up their careers or think about the next job, you could depend on these guys to do good. And they all went.
"I thought ‘I’ve got to get out of here’. I can’t look sponsors in the eyes or do the end-of-season Player of the Year awards and think ‘oh, this great and we’re on the right track’ because I knew we weren’t.
"Decisions weren’t being made for the right of the football club. And the football club suffered badly because of it.”
He added: "With leadership, you have to have accountability. What I found was that there was no accountability throughout the club.
"Coaches, people didn’t have to do their jobs. Some people chose to do them, some didn’t know how to do them. No one had to do their jobs, no one was responsible for anything. Without that, it was just the wild west.
"I think the people that Marcus had in charge and the people he went to for leadership had no idea what you might have to do to be a successful professional footballer, to become a professional footballer, to run a team or where to invest or what to do.
"When the Five-Point Plan was going out, I was thinking, ‘what were we doing before?’. It’s a soundbite.
"I remember when we were saying we’re going to stroke it around at the back and everyone had this plan, and I remember going straight to Bryan Klug and saying ‘Bryan, we will get relegated. Do the people not realise why Mick had to play the way he did last year?’
"It was insane because we were saying we going to stroke it around at the back.
"I remember that that they were looking for a manager and I remember phoning Dave Bowman, saying ‘what about this manager, what about this? They’ve got some experience’.
"An old manager of mine phoned me up and said ‘Alan, can you get my CV in?’. And I phoned Dave Bowman and he said ‘they won’t even consider him’. ‘But he’s had two promotions to the Premier League!’. He said, ‘Yes, I know but they want somebody young and fresh’.
"You had this mad situation where you got the impression that the job was going to be given to somebody who was inexperienced enough to say ‘yes, I can work under those budget constraints and play it out from the back’. And you could see it coming.
"But again, no one was really responsible, no one knew who had come up with the plan. I certainly know that anyone that was experienced and honest at that football club was not consulted. Anyone qualified to put a plan together was not consulted.
"They might be good plans for Man City, they might sound good and everyone says ‘well, if you play the same formation throughout the club it’ll help’.
"Anyone who suggests that just hasn’t worked in youth development at our level, that is so far from the truth you don’t know what you’re talking about if you think that’s a helpful perspective. Knowing the challenges you have with youth, it’s just nonsense.”