 [Blog] Why the Burley Blueprint Won't Work, But We Must Stick With PJWritten by Superfrans on Tuesday, 3rd Jan 2012 20:01 Before the home match against Nottingham Forest, I simply couldn't imagine a defeat against a team which had failed to score for 10 hours. It seemed unthinkable. Sadly, it wasn't. A 3-1 home defeat. I am sure I'm not the only Town fan who has rarely felt as low about the fate of our club. The hand-wringing and gnashing of teeth over the past 24 hours has had plenty of our fans calling for a return to the good old days. For a lot of Tractor Boys and girls, certainly anyone in their early thirties or below, the good old days mean the days of George Burley's promotion team of the late Nineties. Surely, it's logical, isn't it? The blueprint Paul Jewell should be adopting is the one which launched Burley's team from the Championship into the Premiership just 13 years ago. Surely we still have a few bottles of Burley's Promotion Elixir hidden away in the boot room? Sadly, even if we did, it wouldn't work. Times have changed, the world of football is different - for goodness sake, Josh Carson was barely a year old when Burley took the reigns at Portman Road. And, there are fundamental differences between the job which was seen through by GB and that which faces PJ. Burley's promotion team was built over five years in the Championship. There was no gun at his head demanding immediate results. And, even if Marcus Evans isn't demanding instant results (and there is strong evidence that he isn't), many of our supporters are. When Burley entered the second tier, he also did so with a group of players who could fundamentally compete at that level, a team which he had been able to work with and assess without any significant pressure. He took over when we were already doomed to relegation. This all meant he was in a position to evolve his team - he did not inherit a team which was falling apart, he certainly didn't arrive to find he was about to lose (arguably) his two most important players, his captain and vice-captain. As a result, the Burley blueprint could never apply to PJ, who was dealt a terrible hand of cards when he took over just under a year ago. He had no choice but to build a team from scratch. He hasn't been able to add the odd player here and there - he lost around 10 players within four months of taking the reigns and was forced to source and acquire replacements quickly. Without doubt, mistakes were made as a result. It is hard to understand why Márton Fülöp was allowed to leave without any sign of a permanent replacement. And Gareth McAuley, in particular, should have been offered whatever was necessary to stay - assuming, of course, that there was a deal which could have persuaded him from joining WBA in the Premier League. Of our newcomers, too many have been either older players, past their best, whose ambition was arguably lost a long time ago - or loanees with priority was as much to do with impressing their parent clubs or potential future clubs than it was driving Ipswich to the Premiership. On top of all of this, the huge turnover of staff has meant that there simply isn't enough stability within the playing staff to allow us the luxury of throwing in the occasional youngster and help bring them through. In fact there is precious little room for experimentation or invention, because you need strong team foundations to do that. Successive years of turmoil among our playing and backroom staff has also wrought a more fundamental impact on our club. Few (if any) of the squad have any feeling for the club - because so few have been here for very long. We talk a lot about their being lack of leadership within the teams which have been built both by Keane and now by Jewell. Some of this should come from their inherent professionalism, some of it should come from the loyalty to their manager and some of it from their understanding of (and commitment to) the club they a playing for. Even aside from the first two, the third is clearly lacking. There are also no senior players at the club able to rally the team, for the good of a great, auspicious footballing institution - which is what Ipswich Town is. Quite simply, nobody on the playing staff has any feeling for our club, its history and what it stands for. Arguably, this also applies to the back room and management team too. Could Simon Clegg reel off the 12 men who turned out in blue at Wembley in 1978? Let alone the players who won the title in 1962, or the UEFA Cup in 1981? Could Jewell? Evans? Maybe it isn't relevant - there are plenty of chairmen and owners whose love for their club has seen hearts rule heads. But somewhere, deep in the halls of Portman Road, there is a danger that the soul of the club (and its connection to the supporters who make it) is being lost. Some will say it has already disappeared down the Orwell. Where this leaves us, I don't know. For me, sacking Jewell just sets the clock back to the start again - another manager will mean more changes, further rebuilding, the loss of those players who came to play for Jewell and the influx of another new lot of signings, this time loyal to the new manager. That would feel like a step back to me. I want us to give a manager three-to-five years to be here long term, build a team from the bottom up. The question, of course, is this - is Jewell the man? I am more certain that he is than I was about Keane, by the end of his reign. The way we played last spring gave me some hope that Jewell has something Keane didn't. It is also clear that he has got good work out of some of our existing players (Lee Martin and Jason Scotland for a start) and has brought in some good permanent players (JET, Aaron Cresswell, Ibrahima Sonko and Michael Chopra) and some excellent loanees (Danny Collins, Keith Andrews and David Stockdale) which at least indicates that he knows where our weaknesses are. Yes, we have been too reliant on loanees and ageing players, but it seems to me that this is borne of necessity. As I've already said, we HAD to ship in a large number of players in the summer. We clearly couldn't get the permanent players we wanted. None of this answers the question of the club's 'soul'. Personally, I think we overstate such things. Just two years ago, Delia Smith was being castigated by her club's fans for not selling up, as they plummeted down to League One. It is amazing what a couple of promotions can do for the popularity of a club's manager and chairman. Our willingness to support players such as Michael Chopra through his problems are perfectly in line with any (perceived or real) sense of honour, or spirit which the club may or may not have held historically. So, what next? Personally, I think we HAVE to stick with PJ - I am also sure that we will do just that. I don't think we will be relegated this season, although we have a lot of work to do to secure a Championship place next season. First job - a new permanent keeper and centre-half in the January window, so we can start building a spine for our team. Jewell must then have time to build something for next season and the season after. We may see season tickets fall again, regular home attendances back around 15,000/16,000, as they often were in the early years of Burley. We should be aiming, by 2014, for the likes of Cresswell, Martin, JET and Carson to be established first-teamers, accompanied by three or four more young signings and some key defensive experience. That is a recipe for success, not successive periods of fear and panic, changing the manager every 12 months for the next flavour of the month. We have to have patience. And prepare for slings, arrows, highs, lows, peaks, troughs and that sick feeling you get in your stomach when you reach the bottom of a big dipper free-fall. After all, that's what being a football supporter is all about, isn't it? Please report offensive, libellous or inappropriate posts by using the links provided.
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