Town boss Paul Cook has responded to suggestions he is in need of an assistant manager following the Blues' under par start to the season.
Cook had been expected to name an assistant boss in the summer having taken the Portman Road job in March.
His Wigan, Portsmouth and Chesterfield assistant, Leam Richardson, was interim boss of the Latics at that stage before getting the job permanently towards the end of 2020/21 with Cook having been aware for a while before that that he appointment was on the cards.
Blues U23s manager Kieron Dyer was a candidate for the role, as was ex-Blues forward Noel Hunt, who played for Cook at Portsmouth and Wigan and is now assistant boss at Doncaster, while John McGreal was spotted - and continues to be spotted - at games and at the training ground. However, McGreal, who played with Cook at Tranmere and is a close friend, is thought to be looking for another manager’s job of his own following his short spell at Swindon.
Franny Jeffers was also viewed as a potential assistant but in the end the ex-Blues loan striker joined the staff as a first-team coach with Gary Roberts having been appointed to a similar role in March. Former Wigan kitman Ian Craney was also named a coach and ex-Portsmouth keeper-coach John Keeley joined the staff in the same role.
With the Blues’ form having been less than impressive since the start of the season, fans have looked around for reasons why and many have cited the lack of an assistant working alongside Cook.
When this was put to the Blues manager, he responded: "In football again you’ll always look at stuff and rightly or wrongly questions can be asked, there’s never a problem with that.
"If you look back on my time, previously, all the lads I’ve worked with are all at other clubs working well.
"So when Ipswich Town aren’t doing so well, that will be a natural process. Mark Ashton, our CEO, our board give me every encouragement, our chairman Michael O’Leary, to look at every aspect of what we’re doing and how can we make it better.
"So just for our supporters, we look at the club in the same light, and we think ‘Have we got enough?’.
"If you look back, for example, at Macauley Bonne’s miss at Cheltenham, and I can speak about Macauley. Was that due to my assistant manager not being in the dugout? I don’t really think so.
"If you look at Lee Evans standing on the ball against whoever it was at home and giving the goal away.
"And it’s right what people will do. We’ve got a great belief in making the club better. If we feel it’s something that should happen and experience should come in, I’d be all for it. I’d be all for anything that makes this football club better.
"In my world, the thing that will make this club better is more time, more games together on the pitch and starting winning. And once you do all of those things, people won’t be worried about coaching staff or anything else, and they’ll be enjoying what they see on a football pitch. And in my world, that day is coming.”
Cook has stuck resolutely to his preferred 4-2-3-1 system so far this season. During his spell in charge towards the end of 2020/21, he switched formation on a number of occasions, although subsequently said he regretted having done so.""
Quizzed on whether he might consider using a different set-up, he said: "I think when you speak with managers and coaches, I think when you sit down and you reflect on a game and you reflect on a game this question I always ask myself ‘Has the formation cost us the result?’
"I think that is a very fair question. So, if you look at Burton Albion and the games, we’ve played, Morecambe at home, all the games we played, has our formation cost the result?
"Not a chance. Absolutely not a chance. Are there other elements to what we’re doing costing us games? One hundred per cent. What are we working hard to do, be better at what we’re not good at.”