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The Master Plan - 2025-2035 - Step One: make the gap impossible - Step Two: end promotion/relegations - Step Three: reduce teams to 17 - Step Four: Manchester United, City, Arsenal, Spurs and Chelsea join European Elite League - Step Five: Elite teams U23 play in EPL, non-Elite EPL teams U23 teams play in EFL
An East Anglian Town overtaken by Londoners
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Decent video on the gap between the championship and PL on 10:40 - Mar 20 with 997 views
I actually think we could be in a good position to break the streak next time. The problem with that is that if Leeds, Sheffield United and Burnley all go down, it will be much harder than it is this time.
I have often said this season that I think team selections have been too biased towards the new signings. I can absolutely see that they are more talented players overall, but they just don't play as a team as much, and don't have quite the same passion for Ipswich as the previous squad do, and how could they when they haven't been part of the double promotion?
However, most people agreed last season that Ipswich were punching above their weights and that Leicester, Leeds and Southampton were ridiculously strong championship clubs (note that despite those thoughts, Leicester and Southampton are going down even more easily than we are, and my friend who supports Leeds thinks that although they might go up as champions, they are weaker than they were last season). But the thing that made Ipswich a special team last season was how well they worked as a team, with the players always on the same wavelength, and also when things went wrong, you could feel the desire to get back into the games, with the Bristol City and Southampton games particularly standing out. That is what made 2023/24 a season that I will always remember among the most special I will ever experience as a football fan.
But that team spirit, and team cohesion, came from the fact that we didn't really make any significant changes to the squad from the previous season when we were ripping up league one (I liked in that video when that guy, a Barnsley fan, referenced our 3-0 win there as the best opposition he had ever seen Barnsley play). In the summer, the only significant signings we made were Omari Hutchinson, Jack Taylor and Brandon Williams but none were put straight in the starting eleven. They all had to force their way in gradually and only Hutchinson properly did that. In January, Kieffer Moore went straight in because of Hirst's injury, but Sarmiento and Al-Hamadi remained just very good substitutes. So we were still effectively playing the league one team all season, and that worked because we had constructed a championship-level side in league one. Then by gaining promotion to the championship as they did, they developed that extra passion for Ipswich and that team cohesion that pushed it from a top six side to a top two side.
Now, I do believe that sticking by the likes of Walton, Burgess, Morsy, Burns, Broadhead and Chaplin (I leave out Woolfenden, Davis, Hirst here deliberately for reasons to be explained later) more would have yielded more points this season because they still had that extra passion and team cohesion which the new signings didn't have. And looking at this season in isolation, it would have been far, far nice to see the core of the squad still going at Premier League level, and competing, and feeling how we did against Liverpool most weeks that they really did us proud even if they didn't quite have the quality to get over the line. Rather than how we felt after Southampton and Man United that we spent all that money and were still not good enough. But I am sure they would still ultimately have been relegated. And I am now thinking Kieran McKenna's team selections might be with an eye to the future, another reason I cannot see him leaving when we get relegated.
So I think the problem with what he is saying about the gap being too big almost comes down not to the fact that we spent all that money and went down anyway, but the fact that last year's team wouldn't be able to stay up. You would think that a side that scored 96 points in the championship, and beat Leeds and Southampton, would be able to stay up in the Premier League. At lower leagues, they can absolutely do it. But McKenna knew that wouldn't be possible, and he isn't content with just being pleased to see the promotion heroes having given it a good go. The problem is that teams have to spend over 100 million to give themselves a chance of survival, and when you spend 100 million signing an upgrade in every position, you get a team of strangers who don't know how to play the system together, and don't have the passion for the club that a team that has won a promotion gets. So spending 100 million doesn't guarantee even improving the team.
But in the long run, I think it does. I think if our current squad could play like last year's squad, they would stay up, because they simply have more quality. And I think that's what McKenna was getting at with his team selection this year. He is training this team to play like last year's team. When we get relegated, I personally think we will keep the vast majority of the team, with Liam Delap, Jens Cajuste and probably Axel Tuanzebe (but hopefully not!) the only big players who I don't think will stay.
But then we go into the championship with Jack Clarke, Sammie Szmodics, Omari Hutchinson, Jaden Philogene, Dara O'Shea, Jacob Greaves, Alex Palmer, Leif Davis, George Hirst and Luke Woolfenden. These are all potential Premier League players for if that side gets promoted. We have to also use the Delap money to sign two very good CMs of the same mould, perhaps Ben Sheaf and Flynn Downes. And then we obviously have Christian Walton, Cameron Burgess, Conor Chaplin, Nathan Broadhead, Sam Morsy, Wes Burns, Harry Clarke, Massimo Luongo, Jack Taylor on the bench who probably won't make it as established Premier League players but have already shown they can win promotion from the championship and could absolutely step back into the team to help them gain that promotion if they need to. And they might even surprise us and show that they could make it as established Premier League players.
Now let's imagine that team has just gained promotion to the 2026/27 Premier League. Now they have that team cohesion and team spirit that the last promotion squad had, and they are more talented, potentially Premier League level players. At that point, I think it would be a mistake to rip apart the team again by spending another 100 million, because we have already spent that money on this team. Now we have this 100 million pound squad again, but now with two years of playing together and a promotion behind them, they are surely as well-placed to break the streak and stay in the Premier League as you will ever see. Or at least, that is the crumb of hope I am clinging onto.
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!
Obviously this requires effectively perfect execution to pull off, though. It's a huge problem for football that the gap is so big. I was thinking about my friend who supports Coventry, how excited he was when they almost got promotion last time and lost in the final against Luton, but surely it can't be anywhere near that exciting this time having watched Southampton, a far stronger team than Coventry's, get destroyed every week and know that if Coventry were to gain that thrilling promotion through the play-offs, they would then get a miserable season where they might struggle to score five points and it would be shock if they got ten. And for the players themselves, most will know that if they achieve the promotion, they will be rewarded by being sat on the bench, replaced by a 20 million pound signing. You almost don't want to go up, and that spoils the excitement of the championship where the prize is promotion, so the gap could destroy both leagues.
In terms of things the Premier League could do, maybe reducing squad sizes? Ipswich won automatic promotion last season, and then signed a supposed upgrade in every single position, without losing the last squad, and are still getting relegated. We effectively have two starting elevens that could win the championship this season, but can't stay in the Premier League. Probably every team in the division has a second team that could win the championship, but is instead sat on the bench in the Premier League. Maybe if those players were instead distributed across the lower leagues a bit more, it could help the lower leagues? Then all players would get shuffled down the leagues a bit and the National League could become more part of the football pyramid. But the lower league teams would need the money to allow them to have these players, so it all comes down to distributing the money better.
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!
one other thing the fella in the video doesnt mention is possible relegations of the "big 17" due to points deductions - but I suspect that is vanishingly unlikely
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