| It is our signings that have 09:15 - Mar 15 with 4531 views | onceablue |
Cost us this season
Music - worst keeper to have played for Ipswich. Palmer starts season we are 10pts better off
O’ Shea - is he 10M better than Wolfe
Greaves - is he 18M better than Burgess
Clarke- is he 18M better than Broadhead
Philogene - 18M really
Obegne - jury out
The above signings have also meant McKenna does not have a clue what his best side is
I would have preferred we played our Championship side all season and least there was a togetherness that the fans bought into
Injuries to Chaplin Smozdics and Burns have also had a massive impact
Having said all of the above I will be there today singing my heart out and praying for miracle |  | | |  |
| It is our signings that have on 11:35 - Mar 15 with 946 views | ITFC1977 |
| It is our signings that have on 11:25 - Mar 15 by Swailsey |
Surprised at the downvotes for what is a very sensible post. |
I think he lost people by saying we should have played our championship team. Lots of them have been injured this season despite not playing much. Also if you think we’ve found it difficult this season with the signings, I dread to think how it would have gone playing with last seasons team.
The 3 or 4 players that have done well this season have all been new signings and maybe Hutchinson added onto that list. | | | |
| It is our signings that have on 11:42 - Mar 15 with 922 views | Blue_Heath |
| It is our signings that have on 11:05 - Mar 15 by Guthrum |
Another issue is which players are going to want to come to a promoted team tipped to go straight back down? Do already established, if fringe, players want to risk having a relegation on their CV (or even finding themselves stuck down in the Champ).
The thing about other middling Prem teams' non-first-choice players is the reason they are in that position - not being good enough to hold down a starting place at this level. Would their subs do any better job at keeping us up than the brightest propects from the Champ? |
We managed to get Phillips, I'd prefer hungry players who want a game with a point to prove. | | | |
| It is our signings that have on 11:42 - Mar 15 with 924 views | HighgateBlue |
| It is our signings that have on 11:05 - Mar 15 by Guthrum |
Another issue is which players are going to want to come to a promoted team tipped to go straight back down? Do already established, if fringe, players want to risk having a relegation on their CV (or even finding themselves stuck down in the Champ).
The thing about other middling Prem teams' non-first-choice players is the reason they are in that position - not being good enough to hold down a starting place at this level. Would their subs do any better job at keeping us up than the brightest propects from the Champ? |
I agree with all of this.
What's to be done? If one follows through the logic of:
(1) Established Prem players won't want to come to us, and
(2) Top championship players have generally struggled to make the desired impact,
then the answer is that we just have to improve our overseas scouting. It's impossible to look at other clubs like Brighton and Brentford and aspire to be like them (invest in talented young players, sell at a profit, recruitment driven by data) without realising that a lot of their successful recruitment has been overseas recruitment (including managers actually, but that's one of the positions we have absolutely nailed).
I understand that this club has progressed miles 'off the pitch', and I understand that we started from a very low base in that respect at the end of the Evans era, so we really were playing catch up at a time when our on-field performance was raising the bar very rapidly in terms of what we needed. So I am not really trying to be critical - I think we have been given a lot these last few years.
However, I think going forward, this is an absolutely essential part of our recruitment. We don't want to be stuck in an era when you had to be born in Yorkshire to play for Yorkshire at cricket! Let's go and unearth a Sarmiento or an Enciso ourselves. And maybe the odd pair of Dutchmen! |  | | |
| I think the reality may be a bit like this… on 11:42 - Mar 15 with 921 views | pointofblue |
| I think the reality may be a bit like this… on 11:19 - Mar 15 by unstableblue |
Muric - was brought in as a shot stopper and to dominate crosses… and his double save at Brighton and the save at Spurs were key, he’s been excellent at crosses… but he’s been error strewn and his confidence is shot
OShea - he’s a good signing and defender, he’s an Irish international, he’s better than Wolfie by some way - good signing
Greaves - have we got amnesia? He was our best player for the start of the season, he’s not come back well from injury and his confidence is not there, but he’s a good player, young and is our future - back him
Clarke - he’s hasn’t managed to raise his game to the higher quality of premier league defences, but he’s improving, learning. He’s had moments this season. If he scores the goal at Fulham we’d all have a different view
Philogene - I’m struggling with all this negativity towards him - he’s barely played, he’s in the England U21 squad and you can see McKenna is improving him. Back him, he’s our future
You don’t talk about Phillips - he hasn’t been good and consistent enough for us and that’s huge… Villa and Palace you saw him really playing and it improved us
Axels fitness has killed us and Godfrey is a left sided centre back rather than full back
Both Ogbene and Bryn’s being out has efffected us big time.
In short we’ve improved our squad - but some players weren’t premier ready and a few have failed [Post edited 15 Mar 11:20]
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O'Shea is better than Woolfenden by some way? In other words, by a distance? I've vehemently disagree with that - especially of late (more because Woolfenden has improved as the season's gone on than O'Shea gone backwards).
I think the issue with O'Shea and Greaves is they do not seem to work together as a pair. Woolfenden and Greaves seem ok, as do O'Shea and Burgess, but something looks off when we play O'Shea and Greaves in the middle of a four.
You are right about Greaves' injury having an affect on him but if Godfrey is a left sided centre back why even sign him? Or, if we did, for what purpose? With Burgess looking out of favour and Greaves struggling post injury we still haven't tried him in his favoured position.
The negativity around Philogene is because we got screwed over by Villa and possibly even the player himself, though there are rumours to the contrary on that. We paid more than we would have done for the summer and he looks well off the outlay. Similar with Clarke without the screwed over bit.
My mate, who's a Forest fan, told me he was the worst keeper ever to play for him and £8m was a ridiculous amount to pay. Muric only played four games for them but can't deny what my mate said. Someone made the point out results haven't picked up since Palmer arrived but that's because the team as a whole have been found out. Earlier in the season we had chances which were lost due to the keeper.
Agree with Phillips. He's started to really find his feet now. Shame it's a bit late and fitness keeps getting in the way. I do wonder how we'd have looked how Ogbene not picked up an injury. | |
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| It is our signings that have on 11:50 - Mar 15 with 881 views | HighgateBlue |
| It is our signings that have on 11:25 - Mar 15 by Swailsey |
Surprised at the downvotes for what is a very sensible post. |
Muric will always divide opinion. Some still consider him the best keeper we have currently. But saying he's our worst ever keeper is extremely hyperbolic and, come on, not true. We've been in the third tier, recently. Muric has been playing in the Premier League, and is demonstrably excellent in some departments (claiming crosses being the most obvious).
I am very happy with Palmer and think he will more than fit the bill in the Champ next season (and he has the advantage that he is not a flashy name and we can therefore keep him). I think Muric needed replacing. But he's not the worst keeper we've ever had.
Much of the rest of what is said by the OP I can get on board with. So far, some of our more expensive signings have been disappointing. But we just have to hope that they will be players for the future. They are young enough to be. If they get us back to the Prem, they will have just about justified their value regardless of what else happens.
Central defence is an interesting one. Many people said that we would need to really upgrade our defence in order to compete. I subscribed to that theory. However, I'm not certain that we've really upgraded massively. I have been impressed with O'Shea in the main, and he's been flexible enough to go over to the right on the odd occasions (ahem) when Axel hasn't been available. Greaves does some very impressive things defensively on occasion, but I can't see him as a material upgrade on the Burgess/Wolfie pairing that we had previously. And those two have been sufficiently impressive when they've played to cast doubt on whether we have really made much of an upgrade.
Having said all that, I do see that even a small upgrade costs serious money, so even if there is nobody that would pay £5m+ for Wolfie, to buy someone materially better is going to cost between twice and five times that, just because of how the market is for Prem clubs who are buying in the domestic market. And that is the market in which we overwhelmingly fish. | | | |
| It is our signings that have on 12:08 - Mar 15 with 849 views | bsw72 |
I think McKenna knows exactly what his best side is for each game but has been unable to field it due to injuries.
McKenna has rarely played the same starting XI week on week in the last three seasons as he tries to balance player fatigue with opposition style.
This narrative that the chopping and changing this season is because he doesn’t know his best side seems to choose to ignore that is how he has managed us in previous seasons.
And anyone who thinks that Muric is the worst keeper to play for us, I assume is either very young or a very recent fan.
Player comparisons are very subjective as people have their favourites or in our case have developed a very romantic view of our promotion sides. |  | | |
| It is our signings that have on 12:10 - Mar 15 with 840 views | SuffolkPunchFC |
| It is our signings that have on 10:09 - Mar 15 by WeirdFishes |
I’m not just saying this for effect, I genuinely think Muric is the worst signing in this clubs entire history.
£8m - £10m and he has contributed so heavily to our likely relegation, if we’d have the c.10 points he has cost us we’d have much more of a chance. |
This is what happens when people just focus on the high profile mistakes that he's made (and he has), without looking at the bigger picture. Muric also saved us points with saves that kept us in games. But blinkered people ignore this.
He's our best shot stopper, with the greatest potential (which he may now never have the opportunity to fulfil).
Palmer has been great too, but had some heart-in-the-mouth moments too, that he just happened to get away with. Again, people who are blinked about Muric just ignore those. | | | |
| It is our signings that have on 12:15 - Mar 15 with 817 views | BlueOura |
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| Statistically Muric…. on 12:19 - Mar 15 with 813 views | bsw72 |
| Statistically Muric…. on 11:07 - Mar 15 by Guthrum |
He's had a few ricks, but also made a number of excellent saves. |
Human nature, people remember mistakes more than they remember the positives. Muric contributed hugely to our unbeaten run through end August and Sept. | | | |
| It is our signings that have on 12:21 - Mar 15 with 803 views | Blue_Heath |
| It is our signings that have on 11:50 - Mar 15 by HighgateBlue |
Muric will always divide opinion. Some still consider him the best keeper we have currently. But saying he's our worst ever keeper is extremely hyperbolic and, come on, not true. We've been in the third tier, recently. Muric has been playing in the Premier League, and is demonstrably excellent in some departments (claiming crosses being the most obvious).
I am very happy with Palmer and think he will more than fit the bill in the Champ next season (and he has the advantage that he is not a flashy name and we can therefore keep him). I think Muric needed replacing. But he's not the worst keeper we've ever had.
Much of the rest of what is said by the OP I can get on board with. So far, some of our more expensive signings have been disappointing. But we just have to hope that they will be players for the future. They are young enough to be. If they get us back to the Prem, they will have just about justified their value regardless of what else happens.
Central defence is an interesting one. Many people said that we would need to really upgrade our defence in order to compete. I subscribed to that theory. However, I'm not certain that we've really upgraded massively. I have been impressed with O'Shea in the main, and he's been flexible enough to go over to the right on the odd occasions (ahem) when Axel hasn't been available. Greaves does some very impressive things defensively on occasion, but I can't see him as a material upgrade on the Burgess/Wolfie pairing that we had previously. And those two have been sufficiently impressive when they've played to cast doubt on whether we have really made much of an upgrade.
Having said all that, I do see that even a small upgrade costs serious money, so even if there is nobody that would pay £5m+ for Wolfie, to buy someone materially better is going to cost between twice and five times that, just because of how the market is for Prem clubs who are buying in the domestic market. And that is the market in which we overwhelmingly fish. |
Feel a bit sorry for Muric, hoping he can do a Hladky and recover but sometimes players are not the right fit for whatever reason. He's going to be a very expensive number 2 and with 2 relegations who will buy him.
As good as Palmer has been even with less playing from the back he's given the ball away a few times only difference is it hasn't resulted in a goal.
Central midfield is the huge problem area that is always overlooked. | | | |
| It is our signings that have on 12:41 - Mar 15 with 773 views | BlueBadger |
Your football takes are as ludicrous as your political ones. |  |
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| It is our signings that have on 12:46 - Mar 15 with 764 views | Axeldalai_lama |
I mean it *is* our signings that have cost us this season, but thats not to say they were bad signings. Obviously if we had made perfect signings and threaded that ridiculous needle of youth, experience, skill, availability, physicality, fitness, cost, luck and anything else you want to add, then yep, no probs we'd stay up. But I would argue 95 times out of a hundred our signings 'cost us' by not being absolutely perfect. |  | | |
| Statistically Muric…. on 12:47 - Mar 15 with 763 views | BlueBadger |
| Statistically Muric…. on 11:07 - Mar 15 by Guthrum |
He's had a few ricks, but also made a number of excellent saves. |
I think those early mistakes undermined his relationship with the defence and subsequently hit his confidence. I wouldn't be surprised if we see him return to the fore next season once he's had some time out the spotlight and some serious coaching. | |
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| It is our signings that have on 13:00 - Mar 15 with 710 views | Blue_In_Boston |
| It is our signings that have on 10:29 - Mar 15 by OldFart71 |
Whichever player you buy you are going on what they are doing at their current club. There are so many teams in this league with players who cost considerably more than the one's we have purchased and so far they have flopped. Take Hojlund at Man Utd, inclusive of add on's £72 million and he has scored 7 goals this season. That's three less than Delap at £20 million. Phillips and Grealish cost Man City £142 million, Phillips on loan to us and Grealish can't get a regular place. Many of these bigger clubs just throw money at it and see if it sticks. They are established and have much bigger crowds and revenue coming in. Town didn't have any choice but to go for established Championship players with potential. I do not believe had we kept all of the squad from Division One through to playing in the Premier League we would have had any chance whatsoever to survive and if the inevitable happens that we are relegated we have a decent squad even if Delap goes which means also the chance to get our hands on another striker and possibly bag a bit of cash as well. |
On that theory Burnley should have paid us to take Muric off their hands.
My Burnley supporting mate couldn't believe their luck when we paid that for him, he gave goal after goal away for them towards the end of last season. | | | |
| It is our signings that have on 13:04 - Mar 15 with 689 views | ringwoodblue |
Personally I’d be happy if Muric never played for us again this season and left in the summer but we have to accept a massive loss on him. |  |
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| It is our signings that have on 13:18 - Mar 15 with 677 views | Axeldalai_lama |
| It is our signings that have on 13:04 - Mar 15 by ringwoodblue |
Personally I’d be happy if Muric never played for us again this season and left in the summer but we have to accept a massive loss on him. |
Not necessarily the point you were making, but massive loss is relative. Obviously in pure monetary terms it's abysmal losing between 5 and 8 million. But in pure footballing terms, at the level we are trying to be at, it's barely even a punt. | | | |
| It is our signings that have on 13:28 - Mar 15 with 661 views | Guthrum |
| It is our signings that have on 11:42 - Mar 15 by Blue_Heath |
We managed to get Phillips, I'd prefer hungry players who want a game with a point to prove. |
He has rather fallen into the second category, lacking consistency and impact. How much were we in a position to carry people rebuilding their careers? Good Champ prospects will be no less hungry than Prem strugglers. |  |
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| It is our signings that have on 13:38 - Mar 15 with 651 views | Guthrum |
| It is our signings that have on 11:42 - Mar 15 by HighgateBlue |
I agree with all of this.
What's to be done? If one follows through the logic of:
(1) Established Prem players won't want to come to us, and
(2) Top championship players have generally struggled to make the desired impact,
then the answer is that we just have to improve our overseas scouting. It's impossible to look at other clubs like Brighton and Brentford and aspire to be like them (invest in talented young players, sell at a profit, recruitment driven by data) without realising that a lot of their successful recruitment has been overseas recruitment (including managers actually, but that's one of the positions we have absolutely nailed).
I understand that this club has progressed miles 'off the pitch', and I understand that we started from a very low base in that respect at the end of the Evans era, so we really were playing catch up at a time when our on-field performance was raising the bar very rapidly in terms of what we needed. So I am not really trying to be critical - I think we have been given a lot these last few years.
However, I think going forward, this is an absolutely essential part of our recruitment. We don't want to be stuck in an era when you had to be born in Yorkshire to play for Yorkshire at cricket! Let's go and unearth a Sarmiento or an Enciso ourselves. And maybe the odd pair of Dutchmen! |
Yes, altho it takes time to get these networks established and to be recognised by overseas players and clubs (from a loan perspective) as a good place to come.
Then there is the issue of assessing standards across different leagues, before getting into administrative things like language barriers and work permits.
Back in the '70s and '80s, Ipswich was at the forefront of recruitment from abroad. Now we are playing catch-up on clubs which are pretty much international organisations themselves. | |
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| It is our signings that have on 13:39 - Mar 15 with 647 views | NthQldITFC |
I'm going to put your name on the list. What is it Pike? |  |
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| It is our signings that have on 13:58 - Mar 15 with 620 views | Markp68 |
Muric - worst ever??!! Yes he’s made crucial errors but one assumes you never watched Andy Marshall play in goal for us? Sereni also arguably worse too | | | |
| It is our signings that have on 14:06 - Mar 15 with 612 views | positivity |
yet another ridiculous take, muric is so far from our worst ever keeper. however, you have some of the most ignorant posts in twtd history in the last couple of days! | |
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| It is our signings that have on 14:10 - Mar 15 with 595 views | Hugoagogo_Reborn |
I kind of wish you'd have misspelled Muric in a sentence that said 'worst singing Ipswich have ever made'.  |  | | |
| It is our signings that have on 14:23 - Mar 15 with 565 views | TractorFrog |
I don't mind the signings so much, I think the problem is more that they have been the preferred team rather than giving the promotion team a go at first. If you look at last season, we started with basically exactly the same team that got us promoted bar the forced goalkeeper change, and the likes of Omari Hutchinson and Axel Tuanzebe had to start off as reserves and eventually made their way into the starting 11. Jack Taylor and Christian Walton, once back from injury, were probably supposed to do the same but Massimo Luongo and Vaclav Hladky were too good to be dropped.
Personally, I liked the team we played against Liverpool. I would have stuck with Burgess rather than Greaves but would otherwise gone with exactly that, with Delap the only new signing in the team because Hirst was injured at the time. And I think that the Liverpool game was a really strong performance. We lost because Mo Salah was too good, but I think most fans left that game feeling confident that we could compete at this level.
But then the likes of Walton, Chaplin, Luongo, Woolfenden were all dropped almost immediately, as though the new signings were the preferred team and the promotion team had to force their way back in by proving they were better. I think it should have been the other way around, with the new players having to do what Hutchinson did last year to prove they are better than the incumbents who would have been the preferred team. This seems even more true when some of those promoted players like Broadhead and Burgess feel like they have played better than Clarke and Greaves but still don't get picked.
Maybe that's easy to say with the benefit of hindsight but I wonder if that attitude would have yielded more points. It certainly feels like most of the games where we have either won, or had a disappointing result but felt proud of the team anyway, have come with a lot of the promoted players, and the games which were just miserable came with more new signings. Not a hard and fast rule (see Newcastle and Aston Villa at home as exceptions on each side), but a general theme. |  |
| 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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| It is our signings that have on 14:40 - Mar 15 with 521 views | MattinLondon |
| It is our signings that have on 11:42 - Mar 15 by Blue_Heath |
We managed to get Phillips, I'd prefer hungry players who want a game with a point to prove. |
Hungry players! What does that even mean? The amount of hard work and dedication which goes in even becoming a professional footballer, yet alone a PL one, is breathtaking. They get there by wanting to continuously out doing their last performance. They don’t just down tools once they are in the PL. |  | | |
| It is our signings that have on 14:42 - Mar 15 with 511 views | positivity |
| It is our signings that have on 14:40 - Mar 15 by MattinLondon |
Hungry players! What does that even mean? The amount of hard work and dedication which goes in even becoming a professional footballer, yet alone a PL one, is breathtaking. They get there by wanting to continuously out doing their last performance. They don’t just down tools once they are in the PL. |
plus phillips is the definition of a hungry player, would be far less stressful to sit out the season rather than come to the lowest-rated and funded side in the prem! | |
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