 Oh Marcus, I Can Feel the Soil Falling Over Jewell's HeadWritten by Mullet on Sunday, 21st Oct 2012 20:12 After yet another defeat snatched from the jaws of victory this weekend Ipswich fans got a telling insight into the inner workings of our club. Paul Jewell gave an interview to national media where the previously fixed mask Paul wore well and truly slipped. A sad and broken man stood before Sky cameras admitting that now he was to go and “consider his positionâ€. No one surely ever wanted to see that? The next morning he was back in Suffolk watching his fringe players play. By the afternoon we received word the hierarchy were still backing him – he has after all the rest of the season on his contract. This chain of events may breed more questions than it answers. For anyone else who made the trip to Hull it will offer little solace that the worst reign in living memory, of any of our managers, may not be over just yet. Another performance so self-destructive and below par you would think our team strung together with other teams’ players had spent their preparation at the 19th hole. It was met with the realisation that whatever the fate of the club in the long term, little may change in the short term. I feel that personal abuse towards anyone at our club is despicable. I condemn it wholeheartedly and always will. To walk out of countless games now and hear some of the unflattering descriptions of Paul Jewell the manager spill over towards Paul Jewell the man get louder, and more frequent is sad. What it does show however is the underlying frustration and anger surfacing is all too familiar in this current era. The dirty, badly scribed laundry is being aired again figuratively and literally. All while we look on, waiting and watching. No amount of booing will alter Jewell’s fate, just as it didn’t alter that of his predecessors. As fans what can we do? Whatever we want is the short answer. Go, don’t go. Boo, don’t boo. It strikes me that a man worth £700m or so and happy to remain out of the public eye has demonstrated the fortitude to do as he pleases. More importantly to do as he sees fit, with all the details in front of him. It’s this position of Evans’s which may prove too much for some. Guessing from the outside, with a large share of dissatisfaction and patchy pieces of information, it’d take a lot of blind faith for anyone not to be moved by our current predicament. If it was up to me Paul Jewell and his staff would have walked away a long time ago. Not because I bear them any ill will, they simply haven’t done a good enough job. Had a player returned such poor displays consistently they would quite rightly have been dropped and most likely moved on. Management aren’t directly comparable obviously but the point remains. In the competitive world of sport any individual would be right to question themselves after such a miserable tenure – the fact it has taken so long to emerge publicly is interesting. I doubt last night was the first time Jewell looked long and hard at himself. It was however the first time he let us all know about it clearly and candidly. A man so self-deceptively gifted in the verbal dark arts, he has kept fans guessing and groaning in equal measure for months now. This wouldn’t be such an issue if the contradictions were countered with competitive and bearable performances. Signings which made sense and displays where those signings as well as substitutions alike were cohesive, however in all of his time here Jewell has rarely shown us glimpses of that. Most damning of all he is now replacing those initial replacements to little or no avail. While no one can expect perfection in any element of football, (there are after all no certainties) I feel Jewell has sold us, Evans and himself short for far too long. Backing of all sorts has been more than forthcoming. He took over our great club at what we thought was its lowest possible ebb and the flow of sewage he’s produced has been truly heartbreaking to watch at times. To see him put out side after side so gutless, shapeless, full of ineptly coached and out of their depth players is truly baffling. Never in my life have I felt so disconnected from those in pulling on our sacred blue. Not through any fault of their own. It’s a job football, nothing more. But when your employers are someone else’s club and you’re only here long enough to be of use to them, it’s hard for me to take to the slew of loanees and one-month wonders ponderously thrashing about like drowning men in our club’s name. This week it reached terminal velocity as Town are looking like crashing through the basement of a league we’ve stayed in longer than anyone else should this go on. We’ve not had a team under Jewell, not once. Some acceptable displays augmented with precious few excellent ones, are outnumbered by more than enough truly humiliating debacles as soon as Jewell starting moulding “his teamâ€. Even with some causes for wider hope, ultimately we are in a position where we barely use what he’s bought here permanently, can’t predict the line-up game after game and can’t see past the next month. That is unacceptable. I thought last night, the death blow might come and bring us all some relief. The main comfort is that perhaps, just perhaps the new man is already in the wings. Evans seems a creature of habit in some respects. Admirable as his backing both financial and public may be for any of his charges, Marcus Evans is clear a man of business acumen and the financial implications of abject failure will be the ultimate reckoner. As it is, a small run of better form from Jewell in the short term may at least allow him the pride and potential not to be bum rushed out of the game – the most likely scenario currently. It may also allow the new man to remove the threat of relegation much easier. Those who believe being anything like Norwich is ever a good idea, are as always utterly wrong. Relegation in this case especially so, it is unthinkable. Where this might not be true is in the poaching of an upcoming replacement from the lower leagues. Hopefully Ipswich should do this correctly and properly instead. I don’t believe a grizzled old head is what we need – someone currently doing more than just the job, but a bang up one in fact would be better. Wherever he ends up and whenever Jewell finally clears desk at Playford Road there must be a rebirth of the club from top to bottom. A plan put in place to develop us across the board and up the table. Breed youngsters who play like the first team play, a first team who play with their own brand of football – competitive and hopefully successful. I would implore Evans and Clegg to formulate that now. Their consulting advisors so far have been as dismal as their managerial choices. If they feel they still need paid help then they should shop elsewhere for it. I cannot imagine those that are employed by the club are any happier than we are – that makes no sense. But what they need is also what we need – signs of life and signs of hope from the inside out. We once talked of our academy being like Ajax’s such was the hope and prosperity surrounding that generation of Bent, Bramble, Dyer et al. The architect, Bryan Klug is back at the club. That may well be the cornerstone we need to reapply that comparison. Let us take forward an identity and apply it, wholeheartedly. We need a system in place where we can replace people, on and off the field and continuity remains. That’s my humble hope and suggestion should the upper echelons of the club ever make it this far down this page. Please report offensive, libellous or inappropriate posts by using the links provided.
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