| Paul Cook 10:51 - Apr 28 with 9291 views | clive_baker |
Does he deserve a bit of credit for being so ruthless with the previous group? I felt there was a case of some babies out with the bathwater and do wonder what might've been for a handful of those, but the huge reset he oversaw was long overdue here. If we were to rid the club of that culture of mediocrity and acceptance he had to be a bit brutal with it, and was. The Demolition Man. I'm glad he didn't come in as another yes man, called it as he saw it, fair play for that at least.
Results were terrible, awful start to the season but we showed some glimpses (Doncaster home, Wycmobe away). Ultimately never delivered a level of consistency under him, glad he moved on, but in his defense he at least signed Burns, Walton, Edmundson, Morsy, Chaplin, Burgess, Edwards. Evans to a lesser extent. Brought JD back in from the cold as well.
I'm being too generous aren't I? |  |
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| Paul Cook on 15:19 - Apr 28 with 1622 views | Superblue95 |
| Paul Cook on 14:42 - Apr 28 by Mach_foreignBlue |
Lambert was a fraud blah blah blah.....tell us about fantastic professionals we had in the team. Never their fault as they were the 'legends' weren't they? [Post edited 28 Apr 2023 14:46]
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You’re not seriously defending Lambert are you? |  |
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| Paul Cook on 15:25 - Apr 28 with 1599 views | Herbivore |
| Paul Cook on 14:53 - Apr 28 by Mach_foreignBlue |
And you of course have never mentioned how bad the managers were.
And how magnificent our skipper was. The legend.
Tell us about it. |
The managers were REALLY bad. Lambert spent three years dialling it in before getting a massive pay off. The football was terrible. Cook just looked clueless, couldn't get a tune out of the players he inherited or the ones he bought.
Chambers was an excellent servant for us, can't imagine too many genuine Town fans would disagree with that. |  |
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| Paul Cook on 15:29 - Apr 28 with 1579 views | Mach_foreignBlue |
| Paul Cook on 15:19 - Apr 28 by Superblue95 |
You’re not seriously defending Lambert are you? |
No. I am saying that the players were the bigger problem than the managers. Just a player power. |  | | |
| Paul Cook on 15:34 - Apr 28 with 1567 views | Mach_foreignBlue |
| Paul Cook on 15:25 - Apr 28 by Herbivore |
The managers were REALLY bad. Lambert spent three years dialling it in before getting a massive pay off. The football was terrible. Cook just looked clueless, couldn't get a tune out of the players he inherited or the ones he bought.
Chambers was an excellent servant for us, can't imagine too many genuine Town fans would disagree with that. |
The managers were really bad.
But the players were a bunch of frauds too. I know that doesn't suit your weird agenda. You need to be connected with reality. | | | |
| Paul Cook on 15:45 - Apr 28 with 1550 views | BigCommon |
I think it's fare to give PC a tip of the hat for some of the players he bought in...
That is all, though.. |  | | |
| Paul Cook on 15:46 - Apr 28 with 1535 views | Kieran_Knows |
| Paul Cook on 11:46 - Apr 28 by itfcjoe |
I don't see it still, I think it is forgotten just how many players were out of contract that summer, that could have gone without all the demolition man spiel and the need to throw the baby out with bathwater
That summer - we could/would have released the following at end of contract:
Chambers, Huws, Judge, Sears, Skuse, Ward, Wilson, Nolan
We offered new deals/took option on
Nsiala, Donacien
Plus lonas:
McGuinness, Harrop, Parrott, Matheson, Thomas, Bennetts
Muutal consent release
Oli Hawkins, Dai Cornell
Sold
Dozzell, Lankester, Drinan, Gibbs Bishop, Downes
I'm sure there are players in the first couple of groups you could say wrong decision made on - James Wilson to go, Toto Nsiala to stay. Had we released Donacien that would have proven to be a mistake - but realistically had all those out of contract players gone then would have still been a massive rebuild required
Just think we didn't take enough care in the sales section:
Dozzell - wanted to go and had a release clause - didn't really miss him
Lankester - Not sure fee we got for him, but if was next to nothing think he is a player we could have persisted with for one more season as he was under contract
Drinan - I always found him a decent option, ironically he'd have probably been more use this season than he was in 21/22
Gibbs - A clear mistake, but think there are extenuating circumstances as one that got lost in between regimes....but if demo man not in full swing would more care have been taken
Bishop - Time may have come for him to move on, but a player I'd have loved to have seen at a time when we were investimg more in medical department - but prob damage had been done with the career stall
Downes - the big mistake for me, especially when you Dyer talk about him. If we could have got him into that McKenna team he'd have been very special and worth serious money
Also Kayden Jackson was in the bomb squad - that would have been a mistake to let him go
Myles Kenlock there too - instead we paid him a wage for a season to not be in squad when he could quite easily have played the role the totally ineffectual Matt Penney could have done
Had we just done the obvious thing - released everyone we could, and took a bit of care over the rest, then i think we'd have been in a better position as a club, and would have meant not started the season so slowly and may have changed a lot - but Cook totally screwed himself over with his approach and cost himself the job |
Cook had tried to patch things up with Downes .... but the damage had already been done and he wanted to leave ASAP. |  |
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| Paul Cook on 15:47 - Apr 28 with 1533 views | jayessess |
I think way too generous, tbh.
As others have said, we were always going to have a huge turnover of players in the Summer of 2021. No manager was going to offer new contracts to Emyr Huws, Freddie Sears, Alan Judge etc.
The challenge wasn't getting rid of players or even getting some good ones in, it was showing up with a functional team in August and he failed that one abysmally! |  |
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| Paul Cook on 15:48 - Apr 28 with 1529 views | Kieran_Knows |
I also wonder about that summer had Gamechanger not arrived and not had the money available like he did.
With little to no money from Evans, I wonder what type of squad he'd have built then.
He tried poaching all of Wigan's recruitment/analyst staff, but Evans wasn't having that either. | |
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| Paul Cook on 16:23 - Apr 28 with 1461 views | Churchman |
| Paul Cook on 15:48 - Apr 28 by Kieran_Knows |
I also wonder about that summer had Gamechanger not arrived and not had the money available like he did.
With little to no money from Evans, I wonder what type of squad he'd have built then.
He tried poaching all of Wigan's recruitment/analyst staff, but Evans wasn't having that either. |
Without Gamechanger? Cook would have been operating at a level and in a way that he was used to and would possibly done ok for a while. But Bits and pieces players, other clubs throw outs, loanees aplenty.
Success meant keeping the club in the division. Mediocrity. Evans didn’t care what league we were in after the opportunity of a Premier League and a quick buck disappeared under madman Keane.
Under Evans the deep seated progressive decline wasn’t going away and while Cook might have staved it off for a season or two, we’d have been heading for L2 and worse at some point. |  | | |
| Paul Cook on 16:26 - Apr 28 with 1454 views | ringwoodblue |
Yes, he deserves some credit for changing the squad for the better but what’s the point of buying a fantastic musical instrument if you can’t play it properly or get a decent tune out of it.
McKenna is the real deal and I’m convinced that if Cook had still been in charge this season, we wouldn’t be challenging for automatic promotion, play-offs at best. |  |
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| Paul Cook on 20:33 - Apr 28 with 1379 views | Herbivore |
| Paul Cook on 15:34 - Apr 28 by Mach_foreignBlue |
The managers were really bad.
But the players were a bunch of frauds too. I know that doesn't suit your weird agenda. You need to be connected with reality. |
That last sentence coming from you is quite delicious. | |
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| Paul Cook on 21:40 - Apr 28 with 1330 views | Mach_foreignBlue |
| Paul Cook on 20:33 - Apr 28 by Herbivore |
That last sentence coming from you is quite delicious. |
Because you really aren't. We were talking about the things from the darkest era of the clubs history and all you do is trolling and pushing your agendas. Not facts as you aren't familiar with it. I will give you some clue though: the players took us down without a fight. Will it stop you from appreciating and venerating them? More than likely it won't.
Did you enjoy clapping off that great servant and others after the Birmingham game which confirmed relegation? [Post edited 28 Apr 2023 21:41]
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| Paul Cook on 21:48 - Apr 28 with 1328 views | Herbivore |
| Paul Cook on 21:40 - Apr 28 by Mach_foreignBlue |
Because you really aren't. We were talking about the things from the darkest era of the clubs history and all you do is trolling and pushing your agendas. Not facts as you aren't familiar with it. I will give you some clue though: the players took us down without a fight. Will it stop you from appreciating and venerating them? More than likely it won't.
Did you enjoy clapping off that great servant and others after the Birmingham game which confirmed relegation? [Post edited 28 Apr 2023 21:41]
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I think you are more or less the only Town fan I've ever come across that thinks the main problem with Chambers and Skuse was that they just didn't really try hard enough. And yet you accuse others of being delusional. You couldn't make it up. | |
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| Paul Cook on 22:01 - Apr 28 with 1294 views | Mach_foreignBlue |
| Paul Cook on 21:48 - Apr 28 by Herbivore |
I think you are more or less the only Town fan I've ever come across that thinks the main problem with Chambers and Skuse was that they just didn't really try hard enough. And yet you accuse others of being delusional. You couldn't make it up. |
If you're that desperate for arguing then do some decent thing and don't twist my words. Don't put words in my mouth that I have never said.
I have said the players from that team took us down without a fight. Not only them two. Them two were the integral part of the team which had no heart, no passion and no desire. Plenty of names.
But such delusional are you that the only people you blame for it are managers. Because the certain names from that team are untouchable and free of criticism for your liking. That's your agenda and divorce from reality.
The current team has a passion for the shirt. They do their talking on the pitch unlike your untouchable heroes from Hurst, Lambert and Cook times. So again, did you enjoy clapping them off for the manner of relegation? [Post edited 28 Apr 2023 22:04]
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| Paul Cook on 22:15 - Apr 28 with 1280 views | TractorFrog |
Honestly, I think he was a very poor manager here, worse than Lambert. He was living off past success and admittedly had been a great manager at Wigan, for example. But it just didn't work here.
Firstly, he joined a team that, like it or not, was not a complete train wreck. In what was an admittedly low quality season of league one, Paul Lambert had that team on the edge of the playoffs, and having just won three on the bounce, and as soon as Paul Cook turned up they slumped into relegation form. It was the worst Ipswich team I have ever seen and certainly worse than they had been under Lambert at the start of the season.
Also, Cook immediately blamed the players and said that he would need total change at the end of the season. It doesn't fit with the fact that Lambert had got better results out of them, or that he then claimed he had no idea about the takeover so wasn't expecting all the amount of money that he got. It sounds to me like excuses.
Then he obviously did the demolition job and signed all those new players, but can we really credit him for our success this year? Obviously, both Sam Morsy and Conor Chaplin, our two best players this season, may not have come without Cook so we can thank him for that, but again perhaps that is them coming based on his past reputation so doesn't mean he did a good job here. Of the other signings, there were a mixture of hits and misses. Most were hits, and we can be very pleased about how Burns, Walton, Edmundson, Aluko and Bonne did at Ipswich.
But arguably, given how much money he was given to play with, he didn't have as much success as it might appear. The likes of Joe Pigott and Scott Fraser looked like brilliant signings, on paper, but simply didn't really work out here. Perhaps this was poor recruitment, not seeing they wouldn't quite fit with the Ipswich 'style of play' or perhaps he just didn't get the best out of them and so let them go. Because the same could be said of Burgess, Evans, Edwards, Hladky who looked underwhelming under Cook but improved significantly under McKenna. Maybe McKenna could have done the same with Pigott and Fraser. Even Morsy has been a lot better under McKenna than Cook. The only player who has had the opposite effect was Macauley Bonne.
And yes, Cook brought Janoi Donacien back from the cold, a good move by him. But let's not forget that he also wanted to get rid of Luke Woolfenden, who McKenna (and McGreal) brought back from the cold and he has become one of our best players, once more. Kayden Jackson has been a similar story, if to a lesser extent, and there can be a strong case that many of the other players released by Cook would also have done far better under McKenna.
It also seemed slightly wrong that Cook never signed an assistant manager. Maybe I am overestimating its importance but it seemed a touch arrogant and may have contributed to his struggles as a coach. And while McKenna seems to analyse oppositions tirelessly to make sure he sets Ipswich up the best possible way against their opponents, Cook seemed to lazily just try to concentrate on his own team. There was a marked improvement when McKenna replaced Cook even within the season, and when he has had a bit longer he has developed the team into a far stronger one, with practically all his signings being extremely successful (Camara and Ahadme perhaps the exceptions, but they weren't signed as first team players).
I think Paul Cook was certainly better than Paul Hirst, and there can be no doubt that he is a good manager because of his performance at other clubs. But I think that is the best that can be said of him at Ipswich, unfortunately. |  |
| They'd all laugh at me if they knew what I was trying to do. To create a new strain of super-wine in half-an-hour with a fraction of nature's resources and a FOOL for an assistant. 'Bernard Black, he's mad,' they'd say, 'he's insane, he's dangerous.' Well I'll show them! I'll show them all! | | Poll: | Who should start in CM with Cajuste? |
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| Paul Cook on 23:00 - Apr 28 with 1239 views | patrickswell |
| Paul Cook on 12:24 - Apr 28 by Pendejo |
No!
Forget everything you've written.
When he arrived we'd just won 3 games straight and were in a good position to push on for play offs.
Close season was the time and place to go on a wrecking spree NOT mid-season |
I think in fairness to Cook though, he got utterly exasperated by what he saw in those final 15/16 games of the 20/21 season. That loss to Gillingham in his first game was the pits and many more were plumbed as the season played out.
Unfortunately, if you stink the place out with the squad you wanted like you did with the one you inherited, then the National League awaits. |  | | |
| Paul Cook on 23:06 - Apr 28 with 1234 views | patrickswell |
| Paul Cook on 14:53 - Apr 28 by Mach_foreignBlue |
And you of course have never mentioned how bad the managers were.
And how magnificent our skipper was. The legend.
Tell us about it. |
I do know that given your visceral hatred of them, the defeat in the league cup to a Colchester side containing both Chambers and Skuse is funny as f**k in retrospect. | | | |
| Paul Cook on 23:18 - Apr 28 with 1223 views | Mach_foreignBlue |
| Paul Cook on 23:06 - Apr 28 by patrickswell |
I do know that given your visceral hatred of them, the defeat in the league cup to a Colchester side containing both Chambers and Skuse is funny as f**k in retrospect. |
Visceral hatred of them ... just like visceral hatred from some regarding the managers.....because it was all managers' fault wasn't it?
The defeat in the League Cup against them....well they must have tried harder than they did during their easy paydays under Hurst, Lambert and Cook. [Post edited 28 Apr 2023 23:18]
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| Paul Cook on 12:31 - Apr 29 with 1088 views | BlueBadger |
| Paul Cook on 21:48 - Apr 28 by Herbivore |
I think you are more or less the only Town fan I've ever come across that thinks the main problem with Chambers and Skuse was that they just didn't really try hard enough. And yet you accuse others of being delusional. You couldn't make it up. |
In all fairness, he HAS made that bit up. |  |
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| Paul Cook on 12:35 - Apr 29 with 1082 views | Herbivore |
| Paul Cook on 23:18 - Apr 28 by Mach_foreignBlue |
Visceral hatred of them ... just like visceral hatred from some regarding the managers.....because it was all managers' fault wasn't it?
The defeat in the League Cup against them....well they must have tried harder than they did during their easy paydays under Hurst, Lambert and Cook. [Post edited 28 Apr 2023 23:18]
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Yes, Chambo and Skuse definitely didn't try when at Town, Mach. You're absolutely right and not remotely mental. | |
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| Paul Cook on 12:52 - Apr 29 with 1044 views | ChateauWines |
Absolutely 100% yes. He cleared out the dead wood and players with way too much influence. Then signed a fair xhunl of this team. Kieran then took whole thing onto a different level. Cheers Cooky |  |
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