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What a disappointing season. 20:27 - May 21 with 3562 viewsitfcjoe

Much more disappointing than last season for me, with raised expectations and a brilliant start.

How it came to this I'll never know, it always felt like we kept forgoing chances to carry on momentum both with the chopping and changing of teams and the decision to postpone games when we would barely have been weakened. We seemed to outsmart ourselves.

I think generally, player for player, we got the recruitment pretty right in the summer - none have blown us away but I think in relation to Holy, Norwood, Vincent-Young and Wilson we can be quite happy with our business. On the loan side Garbutt proved to be a good addition but Norris seemed unnecessary at the time and proved to give us more questions than answers.

But the squad, when you see the make up of it seemed to be build for a 433, whereas we ended up playing 442 and 352. We only had 2 fit strikers and 3 fit centre backs until November or so in reality so seemed a strange way to go about things.

Things looked so rosy when we beat Fleetwood in October, but an international break, and then 2 league games and 6 cup games over a 6/7 week period just killed us.

I've been heavily critical of the manager, and it seemed as though after some harsh words at Lincoln the players got their point across and followed it up with an unchanged team and a decent run of performances and results. But as soon as we came up against well organised teams we just looked second best - no patterns of play, no familiarity in the line up and easy to play against.

For me a change of management is a must, we have largely the same squad of players under contract next season and whoever the manager is is going to have to get a tune out of them. Losing KVY and having Norwood not fully fit has cost us as well, but we will look back at this season as a massive missed opportunity, and with this pandemic here it may prove to be the biggest missed opportunity for a long time. Next season will start behind closed doors, almost certainly, and money will be tight and we've already committed to spending.

What a mess, and it was so unavoidable.

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What a disappointing season. on 21:04 - May 21 with 3025 viewsBloomBlue

I agree. I always think Town will win the league at the start of every season and while I wasn't expecting it to be a walk in the park I was expecting a positive season and easily a top 6 finish.
Especially after last season I was looking forward to some excitement and a coming together of the fans and to be fair PL did get the fans back together for a short period.

As a club we should admit the MM mistake and get him back here as manager, he will guarantee us promotion.
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What a disappointing season. on 21:13 - May 21 with 3017 viewsvapour_trail

We came in pretty much where I predicted this season, as indeed we did last time round. No pleasure in any of that.

However, as you say after the start we gave ourselves, such an opportunity squandered, and there should be a change at the helm. Don’t believe that’ll happen though.

Expect a similar outcome next season.

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What a disappointing season. on 21:20 - May 21 with 3006 viewsPJH

It was more disappointing than last season in as much as we had everything in place to not rectify last season but at least recover from it.

Nothing will ever convince me that we should not have gone straight back up and up until November and again to a lesser extent in January it looked like we would be-we collapsed massively.

Despite my first paragraph last season was a huge disappointment too because it was so unnecessary so in my eyes there is a case for saying that last season was the bigger disappointment.
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What a disappointing season. on 21:21 - May 21 with 3001 viewsDinnernotTea

I think the most shocking for me is we actually went top in January as well, which given how bad we were since October tells you everything you need to know by just how much this league was there for the taking.

Performances against Peterborough at home, Portsmouth away, Fleetwood at home, Sunderland away (2nd half) Cov at home makes me shudder. Lambert just has no clue how to beat a decent side, his 26% win record after 78 games played here is absolutely pathetic and would worry every single owner or Chairman in all 4 leagues.

That said, there are only so many times we can just keep ploughing through managers but the same players year in year out are still picking up their wage. For me it's a lot deeper than always being the manager.

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What a disappointing season. on 21:32 - May 21 with 2958 viewsKeaneish

Strange season. First quarter of the season was pragmatic and relatively comfortable watching if not spectacular. The second quarter disjointed and questionable whilst the third was abject and delusional.

To galvanise a fan base so majestically yet fail so pathetically is beyond incompetent and quite frankly, embarrassing. Another systemic failure in a litany of false dawns. Incredible that Mick McCarthy’s wonder season is the only thing of note in a decade of mis-management debacles.

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What a disappointing season. on 21:59 - May 21 with 2871 viewsvapour_trail

What a disappointing season. on 21:32 - May 21 by Keaneish

Strange season. First quarter of the season was pragmatic and relatively comfortable watching if not spectacular. The second quarter disjointed and questionable whilst the third was abject and delusional.

To galvanise a fan base so majestically yet fail so pathetically is beyond incompetent and quite frankly, embarrassing. Another systemic failure in a litany of false dawns. Incredible that Mick McCarthy’s wonder season is the only thing of note in a decade of mis-management debacles.

What next is the question?


It wasn’t a wonder season, it was a few years of sustained over achievement and then a fall back from previous heights hit.

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What a disappointing season. on 22:00 - May 21 with 2859 viewsSpruceMoose

What a disappointing season. on 21:04 - May 21 by BloomBlue

I agree. I always think Town will win the league at the start of every season and while I wasn't expecting it to be a walk in the park I was expecting a positive season and easily a top 6 finish.
Especially after last season I was looking forward to some excitement and a coming together of the fans and to be fair PL did get the fans back together for a short period.

As a club we should admit the MM mistake and get him back here as manager, he will guarantee us promotion.


I'm afraid the Ipswich job is far below Mick's level now.

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What a disappointing season. on 22:03 - May 21 with 2858 viewsJDB23

Its just the fact we've looked so incredibly average in what is a shocking, absolutely shocking, league.
Even when we were cruising at the start, we never looked far apart from the teams we were playing. I think v Accrington at home was the only game we really took a team apart. Yes we have no divine right to walk the league, but with our resources even a buffoon of a manager would have us wiping the floor with a lot of these sides.
For me the worst season in our history, with the worst manager. Hurst made a monumental mistake in one transfer window, but Lambert has 18 months worth of garbage behind him to solidify his place at the bottom.
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What a disappointing season. on 22:29 - May 21 with 2780 viewsunstableblue

I think the injuries to KVY and Norwood were crucial as it lost some of the high press, and it lost the dynamic running and width.

Without those factors, and with Bishop not coming into fitness later, we lacked something extra to out game.

Despite this Lambert needed to build on the early platform of results and midfield solidity. And he struggled to get more players going forward and numbers into the box and crucially Judge was not played effectively.

What is weird is that Downes and Wolfenden have had just excellent seasons, Garbutt has in the main been good. But Edwards, Chambo, etc etc were inconsistent. Dozzell and others did not fulfill potential. Nolan was just not effective.

Lambert just couldn't be consistent and get a formula right.

We did have some excellent performances at home in a string of poor results, but against the better sides we looked second best.

I just think Oxford, Coventry and Rotherham were just better coached technically, end of. So Lambert has to go.

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What a disappointing season. on 22:55 - May 21 with 2700 viewspatrickswell

I worry about us for the future. We look set to go beyond mediocrity and into outright failure. There are players here whose Ipswich careers have seen them endure nothing but failure and defeat, God knows where their confidence or belief is. We have a manager who has forgotten how to win football matches over a number of years and it’s presided over by an owner who cannot inspire and who clearly cannot and will not give managers the tools to succeed here which is compounded by his own poor decision making.

It’s a season which shows me where we are now in the footballing food chain. An indecisive manager presiding over a squad of mentally fragile players and an owner who will likely find that under his present attitude, the Frank Lampards of this world will give us a wide berth and we’ll be lumbered with Simon Grayson, only for him to find out the very apex of our owners ambition is 21st in the Championship. Evans has turned us into a works team. Thanks for the game and please leave your donation for painting the roof in the fanzone.
[Post edited 21 May 2020 22:57]
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What a disappointing season. on 22:55 - May 21 with 2699 viewsgroovyASH

The belief in the strength of the squad this season always baffles me a bit. We forget just how abysmal we were the season before.

We relied too much on close 1-0s earlier in the season and this gave us a false sense of superiority over others in the division.

We needed a good manager to get this squad out of the league and Lambert is not a good manager. He has got away with it massively this season and that does not bode well for us.

And we cannot ignore the fact that, as is the story of Ipswich Town in the past few years, we are lucky to get half a campaign out of our most talented players because they spend the other half injured or lacking fitness.

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What a disappointing season. on 23:07 - May 21 with 2656 viewsSpruceMoose

What a disappointing season. on 22:55 - May 21 by groovyASH

The belief in the strength of the squad this season always baffles me a bit. We forget just how abysmal we were the season before.

We relied too much on close 1-0s earlier in the season and this gave us a false sense of superiority over others in the division.

We needed a good manager to get this squad out of the league and Lambert is not a good manager. He has got away with it massively this season and that does not bode well for us.

And we cannot ignore the fact that, as is the story of Ipswich Town in the past few years, we are lucky to get half a campaign out of our most talented players because they spend the other half injured or lacking fitness.


And we don't even sell as many season tickets as Portsmouth 😭

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What a disappointing season. on 23:50 - May 21 with 2614 viewsC_HealyIsAPleasure

What a disappointing season. on 21:59 - May 21 by vapour_trail

It wasn’t a wonder season, it was a few years of sustained over achievement and then a fall back from previous heights hit.


9th, 6th, 7th

‘Wonder season’

I wonder how long it’ll be until we make it back to finishing above even the finish that followed those...

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What a disappointing season. on 00:31 - May 22 with 2588 viewsvapour_trail

What a disappointing season. on 23:50 - May 21 by C_HealyIsAPleasure

9th, 6th, 7th

‘Wonder season’

I wonder how long it’ll be until we make it back to finishing above even the finish that followed those...


14, 9, 6, 7.

Four seasons of over achievement.

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What a disappointing season. on 01:07 - May 22 with 2562 viewsMatt_Netherlands

The most infuriating thing for me is that in 14/15, a majority of us will agree that one of the main reasons we didn’t go up after being top in January was no strengthening that transfer window. This year? Top again in January (or at least there and there abouts), but yet again we haven’t been shrewd enough to add that bit of quality to get us over the line. Obviously the finger gets pointed at Evans for that, but for me Lambert has to shoulder some blame too, did he push hard enough to get deals done? Was he wrongly complacent about our squad strength? Did he not have targets lined up? It was clear for all to see that “the best squad in the league” wasn’t firing on all cylinders, and unfortunately the sole addition of Josh Earl wasn’t the answer to our prayers!

Also agree completely with what others have said about the start of the season, many of our results and scrappy wins flattered us. At the time we probably wrongly thought “champions always find a way of winning” but in reality we hadn’t been found out yet
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What a disappointing season. on 01:12 - May 22 with 2547 viewsC_HealyIsAPleasure

What a disappointing season. on 00:31 - May 22 by vapour_trail

14, 9, 6, 7.

Four seasons of over achievement.


Yes, fair correction

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What a disappointing season. on 06:28 - May 22 with 2424 viewsKieran_Knows

An utter shambles, followed with that pathetic 5 year deal for Lambert. I think that really did just about sum up Evans ownership of this club.

From my own personal point of view, I’ve just got to the stage of not giving a sh*t anymore, very much like towards the end of Mick’s time here. Rarely enjoy going down to PR as you know it was going to be sh*t.

Renewed my ST again like the tit I am, and I’m really not sure why. I’ve always used the excuse ‘not arsed about the football but at least I can meet up with the lads and have a few beers’, but I won’t be doing that for a long time.

If Evans had anything about him he’d get shot of Lambert, now, and get Nathan Jones in as his replacement ASAP.

For now though, f*ck football, f*ck Lambert and f*ck Evans.
[Post edited 22 May 2020 6:28]

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What a disappointing season. on 06:53 - May 22 with 2396 viewsSteve_M

Yes, one more missed opportunity to add to the long list since the Summer of 2001. And then, to top it all, Evans times the new contract for Lambert to the absolute lowest point after nearly two months without a win. I’m not convincved that just missing out on automatic promotion and not goin up via the play-offs would be a failure given the mess we were in last season but failing well short of the play-offs definitely is.

The squad is good but unbalanced and still with some glaring weaknesses but there is no question that Lambert should have got more from it and would have done had he not spent the Autumn changing formation and personnel every week.

I still like a lot of what Lambert has done to change the approach of the club - and consider it necessary for us in the longer-term - but none of it is worth a damn if we remain so incompetent on the pitch. We do need a change now but I don’t expect one before the start of next season and wouldn’t have done even had the season not been curtailed.

That it has, and that most people are well aware of football’s relevance at the moment has been met by the biggest shrug of indifference from Town fans. That’s quite a big indictment really, imagine not caring about how the season will end becuase we are indifferent to promotion from the third division.

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What a disappointing season. on 08:18 - May 22 with 2219 viewsFacefacts

Allowing for the fact that our budget is set and broadly known, we don't work hard enough to get success at any level and we don't have the manager or senior players to change this. We have a long way to fall yet. And to top it all we saw the monumentally stupid seismic event to give our manager a long contract extension to stop him quitting on Boxing Day after a public meltdown. We would be better off if he had just walked.
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What a disappointing season. on 08:32 - May 22 with 2186 viewsChrisd

What a disappointing season. on 21:21 - May 21 by DinnernotTea

I think the most shocking for me is we actually went top in January as well, which given how bad we were since October tells you everything you need to know by just how much this league was there for the taking.

Performances against Peterborough at home, Portsmouth away, Fleetwood at home, Sunderland away (2nd half) Cov at home makes me shudder. Lambert just has no clue how to beat a decent side, his 26% win record after 78 games played here is absolutely pathetic and would worry every single owner or Chairman in all 4 leagues.

That said, there are only so many times we can just keep ploughing through managers but the same players year in year out are still picking up their wage. For me it's a lot deeper than always being the manager.


Down to 3 areas of responsibility for me. ME, PL and the players. ME has shown as our leader than he still gets plenty wrong. The continued under-funding and lack of an infrastructure has gradually had an impact and thus this is where we now find ourselves. Is it any surprise that under ME's ownership we are at our lowest ebb for 65 years as a club? We are run as a lower league club and have been for some considerable time. Unfortunately, PL doesn't appear capable, he's been terrific in galvanising the fans and I do believe he really understands how football clubs should function off the pitch, but he lacks the managerial and tactical nous to make us proper contenders. Sadly, we've haven't been that convincing this season, even when we were top of the league. The players seem the ones that appear to escape most criticism, a team that was woeful last season in the Championship, I'm still scratching my head as to why they should be considered the best squad in L1? Perhaps it is more the mentality that should be put into question? Nevertheless, for the good players we have, we've got a lot of L1 and lower within that squad.
[Post edited 22 May 2020 8:36]

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What a disappointing season. on 08:57 - May 22 with 2122 viewsdavblue

on the recruitment side we need to start looking further afield, we shop in one of the most expensive markets, i don't want a team full of foreign players but we need to start looking at the European market more.
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What a disappointing season. on 09:02 - May 22 with 2101 viewsRobTheMonk

Hurst was crap but you could arguably said at the time that he was a young manager on the up and not an awful signing. Hindsight says different but at the time...

Lambert was a manager on the down and his record for us in the Championship and the performances were exceptionally awful. It's not particualy improved in League 1 and the football has been just as turd as anything I've seen from us in the mid season stage.

Did we not play loads of different starting lineups at some point?

But now it's do we stick with the devil we know and see if he can pull us out of this cesspit. I'm not so sure he can...
[Post edited 22 May 2020 9:11]
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What a disappointing season. on 09:04 - May 22 with 2086 viewshadleighboyblue

What a disappointing season. on 08:32 - May 22 by Chrisd

Down to 3 areas of responsibility for me. ME, PL and the players. ME has shown as our leader than he still gets plenty wrong. The continued under-funding and lack of an infrastructure has gradually had an impact and thus this is where we now find ourselves. Is it any surprise that under ME's ownership we are at our lowest ebb for 65 years as a club? We are run as a lower league club and have been for some considerable time. Unfortunately, PL doesn't appear capable, he's been terrific in galvanising the fans and I do believe he really understands how football clubs should function off the pitch, but he lacks the managerial and tactical nous to make us proper contenders. Sadly, we've haven't been that convincing this season, even when we were top of the league. The players seem the ones that appear to escape most criticism, a team that was woeful last season in the Championship, I'm still scratching my head as to why they should be considered the best squad in L1? Perhaps it is more the mentality that should be put into question? Nevertheless, for the good players we have, we've got a lot of L1 and lower within that squad.
[Post edited 22 May 2020 8:36]


I agree all 3 you mention are all responsible for the low point the club is at . In particular the manager has failed miserably to get the best out of the players at his disposable .

The question is , is this down to PL alone , or should questions be asked of his coaching team and of the players .

The team played as if they didn't really have a plan . Senior players went missing and the tactics failed against any sort of well organised team .

A big shake up is needed either in personnel or mindset of both management and players , hopefully bringing the enthusiasm of the younger players through might add some more energy into things .
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What a disappointing season. on 09:24 - May 22 with 2037 viewscbower

What a disappointing season. on 00:31 - May 22 by vapour_trail

14, 9, 6, 7.

Four seasons of over achievement.


Lest we forget, in addition to those finishes and accepting the style of football was not great, in his final season (the last few games Klug was in charge) McCarthy's Ipswich finished above Leeds and Norwich. The following season the Budgies went up and Leeds look likely to follow them this season!!! Now they were the really bad times, weren't they?

bluescouser

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What a disappointing season. on 09:44 - May 22 with 1992 viewsMattinLondon

What a disappointing season. on 22:00 - May 21 by SpruceMoose

I'm afraid the Ipswich job is far below Mick's level now.


Serious question - where do you think is Micks level? Lower half championship?
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