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The Way Back From Here Will Be Long, But There is a Way
Written by SomethingBlue on Wednesday, 4th Mar 2020 15:23

It's a delicate situation now, perhaps an existential one. People need to stay engaged, focused and angry – which I know isn't easy to do given the endless stream of kicks in the teeth. But articulated vocally and consistently – which hasn't ever happened yet – it will have an effect in time.

The best-case scenario at this point is that Marcus Evans hands over to an owner who – even if not especially wealthy – is smart, engaged, understands how a club can maximise its every aspect in the 21st century, and gets the right football brains and voices in around him. I wonder what the Koeman/Bergkamp/Larsson/Kuyt consortium that's been looking around League One is up to at the moment...

That is not definitely going to happen overnight, though, and the short-term ambition needs to be that ITFC's structure drags itself into the modern age.

We will probably take £4-5m in transfers fees this summer and, honestly, if we see a small fraction of it reinvested in a dynamic chief executive (maybe just *a* chief executive for that matter...!) and a couple of technical roles to take the heat off Lee O'Neill it'll be money far better spent than on any players.

We are not fit for purpose; we just lurch, and will continue to do so until the club has a structure both resilient and agile enough to maintain a vision and identity whoever the manager is and whatever is happening on the pitch.

All the fanbase can do is keep driving that message. Everyone probably feels helpless now but it's important to keep the noise up. Certain aspects will look after themselves. Paul Lambert is a good guy, trust me on that, but it hasn't worked and he ought to be gone within the next seven days so that we can get things in place for next year.

There is a bit room for optimism: Kane Vincent-Young and Jack Lankester have been out so long that nobody will take a punt on them at this stage; I'm not certain Championship clubs are quite convinced enough about Kayden Jackson while James Norwood should be good for a better goal return if this absence sorts his issues out at last.

We will lose players but still have a decent talent base to build on and at least make the play-offs in 2020/21 under the right management.

Overall, the next few games need to be used to hammer in the point, via any platform possible, that nothing about the way ITFC operates is good enough. It shouldn't be personal towards Evans the human being; his intentions are good, but he's just not been good enough in a way that goes way beyond how much cash he does or doesn't have.

See it as an opportunity; inside the stadium it's only surfaced in dribs and drabs over the years, mainly because people understandably *want* to believe and there have been bones of various juiciness thrown. There is a way out of this but it will take time, energy and effort. It won't be easy but the alternative is unthinkable.




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Ryorry added 16:48 - Mar 4
Top blog, top man SB
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IPSWICHMOUSE added 17:32 - Mar 4
Spot on ....Good blog......It is hard being a Town fan.......STILL ....It has now come to crisis point & needs sorting before it gets any worse......Still be Blue...Still wear my colours with pride...wherever we end up........COYB...ITID....UPPA TOWEN.

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Bildestoned added 17:41 - Mar 4
I’m bemused - regularly - by the ME Thing. Why would he just ‘hand the club’ to someone when he’s in it financially up to his neck? I’m not sure he’s in a position to just write-off £90m plus, although the Sunday Times Rich List has his as being worth £937m. But if that were the case and he could/would do that surely he would have done that a long time ago? Also, the general consensus of opinion was/is that this squad is comfortably good enough to not only survive in L1 but to exit it sharpish-like. That not happening seems something we shouldn’t be laying at ME’s door. As much as I appreciate the positives that Lambert has brought to the Club we maybe should look at the wisdom of his appointment in the first place, arriving as he did with a disturbingly Jewellesque track record.
I wonder what the next turn in the road will be?
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skankerman added 18:25 - Mar 4
Good balanced blog
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ChestnutSe added 19:40 - Mar 4
There was quite an orchestrated attempt to get McCarthy the sack. The toxic atmosphere that created was pretty unpleasant and the result has not really moved the club forward has it?
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Churchman added 19:40 - Mar 4
That was interesting and balanced
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ChestnutSe added 19:40 - Mar 4
There was quite an orchestrated attempt to get McCarthy the sack. The toxic atmosphere that created was pretty unpleasant and the result has not really moved the club forward has it?
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Moggasknockdown added 21:08 - Mar 4
Fantastic blog. Feels really important, and should be in the minds of every town fan. We are not fit for purpose, and now is the time for fundamental, structural change. COYB
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hyperbrit added 23:17 - Mar 4
we have to acknowledge how bad it has become for it to get better...great blog!!
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alfromcol added 10:30 - Mar 5
Interesting take on the situation.
Does anyone have any idea what the real debt is? £100m keeps getting bandied about, is this a real figure? Does another part of the Evans empire take interest on this debt? ie 5% on £100m is £5m and if this is the case that this adds to the debt of the ITFC part of the Evans empire. Would be nice to know. It is likely that the Evans empire has lots of very clever Accountants who can get all sorts of tunes out of the finances of the Evans empire.
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almostblue added 18:49 - Mar 5
Thanks Somethingblue for your timely blog, and your ‘call to action’. It’s tough for big ego’s to admit failure, but surely our wealthy and otherwise successful owner must be now questioning how his ITFC foray is anything but. Instead of ITFC boosting the ME image, has it turned out to be an embarrassment the ME empire would prefer to shed? It could have gone the other way, we could have been a Leicester perhaps, and the ME experiment would have been deemed a glorious success. It’s not too late for ME to now graciously offload the club and we would surely all applaud him for his no-doubt well-meaning efforts - and for showing great courage in doing what’s best for ITFC, which is to sell. The alternative is to carry on regardless, while fans get evermore restless, despondent, and pay fewer visits to Portman Road. Let’s begin discussing clever and novel ways of showing our dissatisfaction, with the north stand banners being a good start.
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midastouch added 21:54 - Mar 5
If Evans keeps on appointing lame ducks like Keane, Jewell, Hurst and Shambert then we've got about as much chance of making a glorious come back as Harvey Weinstein! Every time he gets it wrong it sets us back further and further. If Ipswich were listed on the stock exchange our current price would reflect something similar to Deutsche Bank, which is about one big jolt away from collapse! It's a very long road back from here. We feel closer to non-league than Premier League now! Whatever he does in business (I'm still not sure what the hell he does exactly, Marcus Evans Limited seems like a lot of smoke and mirrors) certainly doesn't translate very well to the world of football.
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therein61 added 07:20 - Mar 6
One of the most sensible and constructive blogs i've read in a long time.
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ElephantintheRoom added 09:06 - Mar 7
People need to stay angry? Why - and angry about what? It was the shareholders of the club who gifted it to an offhore asset stripper on the advice of the fast-exiting directors some of whom were pleased to have their high interest loans repayed at someone elses expense. The one thing you do not seem to be advocating is patience.... perhaps the one thing Town supporters need to exercise (apart from their brains) in the current scenario. Hurst was appointed to wide praise on here. His signings were made to wide praise on here. In many ways it was a sensible appointment - just as the preferred option who didnt do mauch better at Sunderland. Now we have Lambert, who actually seems to care... but seems a bit short on managerial ability. As you say a couple of key injuries amongst the usual tsunami of injuries have proved crucial. Why not adopt a modicum of support for what Evans is belatedly trying to do... construct a football strategy on a very limited budget with a manager who has shown some commitment to the cause. Promotion this season was always something of a pipedream....it is the bizarre and unrealistic expectations that are killing this club more effectively than the asset strippers.
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norfolkbluey added 17:20 - Mar 9
Patience!!! ElephantintheRoom where have you been for the last 3 months?! The fans have been fantastic until recently. Early form was brilliant but it turned out to be a damp squib.
Scoring goals is the name of the game and keeping clean sheets, neither of which has happened for a long time. The comments in this blog are spot on. I thought PL was an excellent signing but it turns out he is a nice guy but clueless when his back is against the wall. That's his recent record having left clubs asap after failing. It speaks for itself. He has to go soon and before the end of the season so someone can take us out of this league and fast before the fan base lose heart.
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atty added 18:06 - Mar 14
“ Dynamic chief executive” ? You don’t really think Evans would want someone like who actually ran the Club do you? He as a majority shareholder runs the Club from afar using a mouthpiece to front up-Clegg,Milne,O’Neil. Our Board,such as it is, are toothless. Not their fault, what can they do apart from running admin,governance and account? When was the last you saw/heard a board member preferring an opinion on football, the team , anything? Oh yeah the Co.Sec said something about Covid19. Oh for the days of a Chairman, with an MD, a Board of committed individuals with collective responsibility, acumen, intellect, an emotional investment in our Club, resolving issues, making decisions together. In other words a proper company structure, with a meaningful functioning Board.
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