| Say what you want about Paul Cook 13:20 - Dec 27 with 15105 views | TalkingBlues |
But by god he made some bloody good acquisitions for this club, many of which still form the beating heart of the team and the outlay, or lack thereof, is also pretty remarkable:
Aluko - Free
Walton - Loan, subsequently signed by McK permanently for ???
Burns - Undisclosed (but rumoured to be around £350k)
Morsy - Undisclosed
Celina - loan
Evans - Free
Edmundson - £875k
Burgess - £880k
Chaplin - £875k
Edwards - Free
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| Say what you want about Paul Cook on 16:13 - Dec 27 with 2545 views | 66notout |
| Say what you want about Paul Cook on 14:19 - Dec 27 by Radlett_blue |
Although the relegation was largely down to Hurst signing a bunch of League 1 players, of whom none were actually capable of performing adequately in the Championship. Hurst also managed to divide the Town dressing room by demeaning the senior professionals, with a classic bit of David Brent-style man management. |
Oh, please elaborate. |  | | |
| Say what you want about Paul Cook on 16:14 - Dec 27 with 2547 views | itfcjoe |
| Say what you want about Paul Cook on 13:58 - Dec 27 by Pique |
On Hladky, although he's been disappointing he's more than adequate as a backup to Walton. If he's happy to continue being so I doubt we'd get anyone better in that role for now. |
Perfectly adequate back up in league 1 isn't what you expect to get for £300k and £5k a week though - he's probably within the top 5 highest paid keepers in the league.
We don't know who was piking players last summer, and it was seemingly a lot of relying on contacts - but we were beating Championship clubs to players so reruitment was always going to be good.
Coventry had agreed a contract with Wes Burns, but they triggered the extra year because meant they could get £150k for him and Coventry were one of a number of Champ sides under an embargo so they couldn't buy him.
The window was a success because we had mega money to spend |  |
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| Say what you want about Paul Cook on 16:17 - Dec 27 with 2524 views | itfcjoe |
| Say what you want about Paul Cook on 14:03 - Dec 27 by TalkingBlues |
Oh, sounds like I've wondered into a minefield. No ulterior motives on my part, was just looking through the squad contract dates and noticed Cooks name appearing a lot, made me wonder just how many McK liked and had kept on, offered new deals to etc. |
What choice did McKenna have though as most of these were signed on hugely expensive 3-4 year deals - when Burgess was out of favour at start of season where could he go? If we needed to shift players from last summer they'd be on sort of deal Pigott was on, or Harper where they are unsellable | |
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| Say what you want about Paul Cook on 16:17 - Dec 27 with 2528 views | SE1blue |
If you drink cups of tea at a profession football teams training session, you’re nothing more than an 80s secondary school gym teacher to me. |  |
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| Say what you want about Paul Cook on 16:26 - Dec 27 with 2482 views | itfcjoe |
| Say what you want about Paul Cook on 16:13 - Dec 27 by 66notout |
Oh, please elaborate. |
Look at Hust's signings that summer:
Harrison (£750k) - bang Average League 1 striker
Nolan (£1.25m) - barely even playing at a L1 side
Nsiala (£750k) - bang average L1 defender
Jackson (£1.6m) - divides opinion but potentially an impact player for bottom end Champ club or top end L1 club
Donacien (£750k) - good player for a top end L1 club, may be able to cut it in Championship
Jordan Robert (£Free) - L2 striker
Gwion Edwards (£600k) - League 1 player who barely got a look in at Wigan last year
Hurst spent over £5.5m on players and not a single one of them - 4.5 years later has shown they can cut it in the Championship - these were players brought in to help us kick on from finishing 12th in the Championship. Lambert didn't have a hope.
No wonder the seniors players were upset - you replace Waghorn, Garner and McGoldrick with Harrison, Jackson and Roberts.....you replace Webster with Nsiala.....everyone knew we were screwed as Hurst didn't get how big the gap was and thought if you could get rubbish players really fit they would be fine. You drop knudsen after upsetting him and play myles Kenlock, the same with Bialkowski to Gerken, 2 massive downgrades.
We also tried to sign Deji Oshilaja that summer, currently at Burton, but Evans pulled the plug on that and signed Pennington instead who had some experience but still proven now to be a bang average L1 defender.
Mick and his guys had deals lined up for Cameron Carter-Vickers, James Tavernier, Scott Hogan (loan) that summer - but then he knew what a Championship player needed to be [Post edited 27 Dec 2022 16:28]
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| Say what you want about Paul Cook on 16:29 - Dec 27 with 2454 views | MattinLondon |
| Say what you want about Paul Cook on 16:13 - Dec 27 by 66notout |
Oh, please elaborate. |
In hindsight I think that PH had a clear idea what was wrong with the club but he was just far too clumsy going about it. His recruitment was poor plus I don’t think the senior players brought into his vision. |  | | |
| Say what you want about Paul Cook on 16:31 - Dec 27 with 2441 views | Nthsuffolkblue |
| Say what you want about Paul Cook on 15:00 - Dec 27 by Mullet |
He's one of the worst managers we've ever had and his "demolition man" nonsense was a disaster. He should have got us promoted, he should at the very least have been close to it. Apart from pandering to a few fans he did nothing here.
The fact those people blamed Ashton when something went wrong with a signing tells us everything. |
He collected a lot of decent players without any thought to how to play them together and prompted to get the lowest common denominator from them on the pitch. The fact they all have improved under McKenna says something about Cook as much as it does about McKenna. A good manager knows how to get the best from the players he has. I am sure that plenty considered not good enough for Cook would excel here under McKenna ... Woolf, Donacien and Jackson being cases in point. |  |
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| Say what you want about Paul Cook on 16:50 - Dec 27 with 2388 views | ibbleobble |
| Say what you want about Paul Cook on 14:12 - Dec 27 by BlueBadger |
Cook achieved similar results to Lambert, with far, far greater resources at his disposal. Had Lambert not relegated us and completely destroyed the morale at the club in his following two seasons they'd basically be on a par. [Post edited 28 Dec 2022 14:10]
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Lambert didn’t have the upheaval of new ownership and a back room staff shake-up to contend with, Cook did. Cook gets more dispensation than Lambert and invested the money he had far better. Cook’s football, at times, was better than Lambert’s too although that didn’t take much.
Cook did well assembling a talented squad with good backing. McGreal and Dyer unearthed a formation the squad could play to and McKenna has brought a professionalism and system to take it to another level. I see all these moments as key to our current success. | | | |
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| Say what you want about Paul Cook on 16:56 - Dec 27 with 2379 views | Nthsuffolkblue |
| Say what you want about Paul Cook on 16:50 - Dec 27 by ibbleobble |
Lambert didn’t have the upheaval of new ownership and a back room staff shake-up to contend with, Cook did. Cook gets more dispensation than Lambert and invested the money he had far better. Cook’s football, at times, was better than Lambert’s too although that didn’t take much.
Cook did well assembling a talented squad with good backing. McGreal and Dyer unearthed a formation the squad could play to and McKenna has brought a professionalism and system to take it to another level. I see all these moments as key to our current success. |
See my comment above. It is only thanks to what McKenna is doing with them that they can be described as a good squad. If another failing manager had come in and worked with them we would be questioning the money Cook wasted on them all.
Take Woolfenden, Donacien and Jackson as prime examples. | |
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| Say what you want about Paul Cook on 17:05 - Dec 27 with 2366 views | Mullet |
| Say what you want about Paul Cook on 15:20 - Dec 27 by Mach_foreignBlue |
Cook did the only one good thing for the club albeit a necessary one. The Demolition Job was needed to eradicate bad culture from the dressing room. He once said: 'the mood in the dressing room is always the same whether they win or lose'...... No surprise really what he said as these players had been the worst ever ones in the history of the club, in terms of football and attitude alike. Relegation without a fight, no real effort to get the club back to the Championship. It was just a nice, easy payday for them as Evans was disinterested. But they would say things people wanted to hear. Hollow, just hollow words as there was barely an effort on the pitch. |
Absolute nonsense. This is the manager that nearly gifted away Woolfenden over Nsiala. People projecting this onto players who tried to protect the club and were not listened to soon enough by Evans is poor form. |  |
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| Say what you want about Paul Cook on 17:07 - Dec 27 with 2352 views | tractorboy1978 |
| Say what you want about Paul Cook on 16:56 - Dec 27 by Nthsuffolkblue |
See my comment above. It is only thanks to what McKenna is doing with them that they can be described as a good squad. If another failing manager had come in and worked with them we would be questioning the money Cook wasted on them all.
Take Woolfenden, Donacien and Jackson as prime examples. |
We had/have a ridiculously good squad for this level regardless of who the manager is. | | | |
| Say what you want about Paul Cook on 17:10 - Dec 27 with 2331 views | Nthsuffolkblue |
| Say what you want about Paul Cook on 17:07 - Dec 27 by tractorboy1978 |
We had/have a ridiculously good squad for this level regardless of who the manager is. |
A squad is only as good as the team the manager gets playing on the pitch.
I am sure Pompey and Derby have ridiculous squads for this level. Sunderland did for years. | |
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| Say what you want about Paul Cook on 17:10 - Dec 27 with 2336 views | Churchman |
It’s quite simple really. Cook hosed up the wall just about the best opportunity anyone could ever have with an L1 club. It was all there for him. The opportunity of a lifetime to build and shape a team with more resources than anyone else. He failed.
Cook has a good managerial record and did his best. He lives breathes and drinks football. He has an eye for a player, obviously. Not every signing was a success. No manager ever, including Ferguson, Pep and Klopp gets it right every time. The players brought in were his. The 2021 recruitment process was explained, just as it was when KM took over and again this season.
On the downside, the bomb squad stuff was wasteful nonsense. By all means move the players he didn’t want on, but it didn’t have to be done in such a public, crude way. Calling out the players after the surrenders? I loved it at the time. The wasters deserved it - but it was the wrong thing to do. It was the first alarm bell for me. By all means go berserk, but do it behind closed doors.
Because of the way he went about it, he wound up throwing a team together and the chances of that working were small. He chose his coaches and if they weren’t up to it, that was his problem.
Overall, the club in terms of where it was going, proved to be the wrong fit for Cook. He had to go and it was only a question of when after we made such a weak start. I was in favour of giving him time at the time and was wrong. If anything he should have gone beginning of October or even better, the day Gamechanger bought the club - that’s with the gift of hindsight.
The biggest mistake was Evans’ appointing him in the first place. It cost us a year. Yes, mouth almighty Lambert had to go, but given he knew he was in negotiations with Gamechanger, why not appoint a temporary such as KD, Klug etc?
Water under the bridge. We are in a much better position on and off the field than this time last year. [Post edited 27 Dec 2022 17:17]
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| Say what you want about Paul Cook on 17:21 - Dec 27 with 2283 views | LegendofthePhoenix |
The brilliance of the Three Lions/Ashton is that they actually saw the potential. They saw Ipswich as a potentially massive club that just needed investment and new ideas, and believed it enough to get the Arizona fund to agree to put the money in. Once that had happened, the draw for new players was not only that we could match the wages of teams in the Championship, but we had something that (almost all) of them didn't - history, and a Chief Exec that could explain his vision of where we were going. So don't attribute it to Paul Cook, the draw we had went way beyond him and the wages. Finally, ITFC were making something of the heritage we have, that other clubs don't have. Something that ME never saw, and never made use of. The next brilliant move of course was to recognise that Cook was not going to have the skills to turn this squad into a top team, and to find a brilliant young manager that would. Mr Ashton, we owe you so much. |  |
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| Say what you want about Paul Cook on 17:50 - Dec 27 with 2208 views | Mach_foreignBlue |
| Say what you want about Paul Cook on 17:05 - Dec 27 by Mullet |
Absolute nonsense. This is the manager that nearly gifted away Woolfenden over Nsiala. People projecting this onto players who tried to protect the club and were not listened to soon enough by Evans is poor form. |
'People projecting this onto players who tried to protect the club'
1. Which players?
2. And what kind of 'protection'? |  | | |
| Say what you want about Paul Cook on 17:54 - Dec 27 with 2201 views | Mullet |
| Say what you want about Paul Cook on 17:50 - Dec 27 by Mach_foreignBlue |
'People projecting this onto players who tried to protect the club'
1. Which players?
2. And what kind of 'protection'? |
Chambers and Skuse literally went to Evans as well you know. Likewise they were doing all the off-field stuff that people get paid to do like helping players settle in etc.
Those two and other senior pros were treated disgracefully by Cook and his fan club and still are spoken about in an appalling manner. | |
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| Say what you want about Paul Cook on 17:54 - Dec 27 with 2192 views | Illinoisblue |
| Say what you want about Paul Cook on 16:17 - Dec 27 by SE1blue |
If you drink cups of tea at a profession football teams training session, you’re nothing more than an 80s secondary school gym teacher to me. |
What if you drink tea whilst pointing at a white board? Or take a couple sips while putting the cones out? |  |
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| Say what you want about Paul Cook on 18:06 - Dec 27 with 2122 views | Mach_foreignBlue |
| Say what you want about Paul Cook on 17:54 - Dec 27 by Mullet |
Chambers and Skuse literally went to Evans as well you know. Likewise they were doing all the off-field stuff that people get paid to do like helping players settle in etc.
Those two and other senior pros were treated disgracefully by Cook and his fan club and still are spoken about in an appalling manner. |
'Those two and other senior pros were treated disgracefully by Cook'
Disgracefully???? What??? Them two and majority of that squad treated an Ipswich shirt disgracefully. The darkest and worst era in the history of the club. How on earth can you have a sympathy for them?
Yeah, they went to Evans as they wanted Hurst to be sacked. They didn't start performing though following his departure.
Them two were the integral part of the worst ever Ipswich team that got relegated without any semblance of fight. And there was no real effort to get the club back to the Championship.
Almost entire squads attitude stunk. But it was all about their bank accounts just not an Ipswich shirt.
They kept waffling the same soundbites on the weekly basis in their interviews.
The club was a nice, easy payday for them and the rest of the players.
'helping players settle in' ... again !!!! Hey man this is Ipswich, nice and easy payday, Evans doesn't give a fook, just enjoy it.
They tried to 'protect' the club that what you have said.....protect from what? [Post edited 27 Dec 2022 18:15]
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| Say what you want about Paul Cook on 18:24 - Dec 27 with 2027 views | SpruceMoose |
| Say what you want about Paul Cook on 18:06 - Dec 27 by Mach_foreignBlue |
'Those two and other senior pros were treated disgracefully by Cook'
Disgracefully???? What??? Them two and majority of that squad treated an Ipswich shirt disgracefully. The darkest and worst era in the history of the club. How on earth can you have a sympathy for them?
Yeah, they went to Evans as they wanted Hurst to be sacked. They didn't start performing though following his departure.
Them two were the integral part of the worst ever Ipswich team that got relegated without any semblance of fight. And there was no real effort to get the club back to the Championship.
Almost entire squads attitude stunk. But it was all about their bank accounts just not an Ipswich shirt.
They kept waffling the same soundbites on the weekly basis in their interviews.
The club was a nice, easy payday for them and the rest of the players.
'helping players settle in' ... again !!!! Hey man this is Ipswich, nice and easy payday, Evans doesn't give a fook, just enjoy it.
They tried to 'protect' the club that what you have said.....protect from what? [Post edited 27 Dec 2022 18:15]
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Therapy is going well I see. |  |
| Pronouns: He/Him/His.
"Imagine being a heterosexual white male in Britain at this moment. How bad is that. Everything you say is racist, everything you say is homophobic. The Woke community have really f****d this country." | | Poll: | Selectamod |
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| Say what you want about Paul Cook on 18:32 - Dec 27 with 2006 views | J2BLUE |
| Say what you want about Paul Cook on 18:06 - Dec 27 by Mach_foreignBlue |
'Those two and other senior pros were treated disgracefully by Cook'
Disgracefully???? What??? Them two and majority of that squad treated an Ipswich shirt disgracefully. The darkest and worst era in the history of the club. How on earth can you have a sympathy for them?
Yeah, they went to Evans as they wanted Hurst to be sacked. They didn't start performing though following his departure.
Them two were the integral part of the worst ever Ipswich team that got relegated without any semblance of fight. And there was no real effort to get the club back to the Championship.
Almost entire squads attitude stunk. But it was all about their bank accounts just not an Ipswich shirt.
They kept waffling the same soundbites on the weekly basis in their interviews.
The club was a nice, easy payday for them and the rest of the players.
'helping players settle in' ... again !!!! Hey man this is Ipswich, nice and easy payday, Evans doesn't give a fook, just enjoy it.
They tried to 'protect' the club that what you have said.....protect from what? [Post edited 27 Dec 2022 18:15]
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I have no ill will towards Cook but telling Chambers he would be offered a deal and then going back on that was not a good look.
If Chambers didn't care about the club he wouldn't have bothered holding it together under Hurst. He had league one offers when he left here and signed for Colchester so it clearly wasn't all about money either.
In hindsight he should have been given one more season for stability as much as anything. |  |
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| Say what you want about Paul Cook on 19:51 - Dec 27 with 1831 views | jeera |
| Say what you want about Paul Cook on 17:54 - Dec 27 by Illinoisblue |
What if you drink tea whilst pointing at a white board? Or take a couple sips while putting the cones out? |
I think that would probably depend on the type of accompanying biscuit.
That could well seal it for me. |  |
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| Say what you want about Paul Cook on 20:09 - Dec 27 with 1787 views | Pique |
| Say what you want about Paul Cook on 16:14 - Dec 27 by itfcjoe |
Perfectly adequate back up in league 1 isn't what you expect to get for £300k and £5k a week though - he's probably within the top 5 highest paid keepers in the league.
We don't know who was piking players last summer, and it was seemingly a lot of relying on contacts - but we were beating Championship clubs to players so reruitment was always going to be good.
Coventry had agreed a contract with Wes Burns, but they triggered the extra year because meant they could get £150k for him and Coventry were one of a number of Champ sides under an embargo so they couldn't buy him.
The window was a success because we had mega money to spend |
Perfectly adequate back up in league 1 isn't what you expect to get for £300k and £5k a week though - he's probably within the top 5 highest paid keepers in the league.
True, but we are where we are. Personally I quite like the fact that for some cup games and if (God forbid) Walton gets injured we have experienced backup, even if we did pay over the odds for it. Hladky has been a disappointing signing, but lemonade from lemons and all that. |  | | |
| Say what you want about Paul Cook on 20:25 - Dec 27 with 1736 views | Mullet |
| Say what you want about Paul Cook on 18:06 - Dec 27 by Mach_foreignBlue |
'Those two and other senior pros were treated disgracefully by Cook'
Disgracefully???? What??? Them two and majority of that squad treated an Ipswich shirt disgracefully. The darkest and worst era in the history of the club. How on earth can you have a sympathy for them?
Yeah, they went to Evans as they wanted Hurst to be sacked. They didn't start performing though following his departure.
Them two were the integral part of the worst ever Ipswich team that got relegated without any semblance of fight. And there was no real effort to get the club back to the Championship.
Almost entire squads attitude stunk. But it was all about their bank accounts just not an Ipswich shirt.
They kept waffling the same soundbites on the weekly basis in their interviews.
The club was a nice, easy payday for them and the rest of the players.
'helping players settle in' ... again !!!! Hey man this is Ipswich, nice and easy payday, Evans doesn't give a fook, just enjoy it.
They tried to 'protect' the club that what you have said.....protect from what? [Post edited 27 Dec 2022 18:15]
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Thank you for demonstrating my point perfectly with this, it's complete fantasy and projection which excuses Hurst, Cook and the toxicity of fans still hung up on "Mick's men" etc.
Baffling and completely detached from reality. | |
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| Say what you want about Paul Cook on 20:34 - Dec 27 with 1706 views | Mach_foreignBlue |
| Say what you want about Paul Cook on 20:25 - Dec 27 by Mullet |
Thank you for demonstrating my point perfectly with this, it's complete fantasy and projection which excuses Hurst, Cook and the toxicity of fans still hung up on "Mick's men" etc.
Baffling and completely detached from reality. |
Oh yeah, lets blame Hurst, lets blame Lambert, lets blame Cook.....all of them are to be blamed. Not the players, eh?
Loads of same players played for these three managers somehow though some people keep fawning over these players and blame managers.
Treating some players like icons despite the fact they took us down without a fight and that was followed by a couple of bleak seasons in League One. The worst era in the history of the club yet some players are treated so nicely. And this is really baffling to put it kindly. | | | |
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