Town boss Mick McCarthy says he spoke to owner Marcus Evans during the international break and that they are of the same mind in wanting the Blues to be competitive and not have another season like this one.

Speaking in January McCarthy said he would consider his position in the summer with fans having expressed their frustrations at a disappointing season which has seen the Blues drop to 17th only five points off the relegation places with only eight games to go.

Does McCarthy believe that announcement destabilised his squad? “Players will carry on, I wonder about the Leicester players. [Claudio Ranieri's departure] destabilised them, didn’t it?

“I don’t think so, not at all. I’ve got a year’s contract, as I’ve said before, but I’ve been speaking to Marcus and both of us are of the same frame of mind that if we can’t be competitive then it becomes tough. It’s a bit like, ‘What’s the point if you can’t be competitive?’.

“So I’ve been having that conversation with Marcus and he wants to be competitive. He sticks £5 million of his own money in every year anyway and I don’t know too many people that would want to keep doing that.

“And so let’s see what happens. Let’s see with the rest of the games, we’ve got to make sure we’ve got enough points and we stay in the league.

“Let’s see if we can finish positively and then both of us, myself and Marcus, will sit down and have a chat about it and see what we can do if we’re going to go forward for next season.”

Does he feel more positive or confident regarding the future having spoken to Evans? “I was never not confident about the future. The only way to be confident about the future is if we get results and points and we’re still in this league and we’re going forward.So that is really my concern.

“And we’ve not been having major chats, I’ve had phone call with him, a couple of calls and I like the fact that he feels exactly the same way.

“I think both of us are thinking ‘Well, if we can’t be competitive, what are we doing?’. And whatever competitive is at our level when there’s hundreds of millions being spent.

“He’s a very, very successful businessman. He doesn’t want to be ordinary in any shape or form and in my career as a player and a manager, I might not have been in the top echelons, but I’ve been in top two divisions most of my life, I’ve played international football, I’ve managed at a really good level. I don’t want to be ordinary either, I want to be better than what we’re doing now.”

That’s likely to take money, has Evans suggested that there might be more cash to spend in the summer?

“I think that’s for me and him to discuss,” McCarthy continued. “The basis of our discussion [has been] let’s make sure we’re still in [the Championship], he does not want to have another season like this, he wants to be better.

“So I guess it’s for me to put a proposal to him in terms of players and what it’s going to cost.

“But we don’t know that, nobody knows what it’s going to cost but if it’s something that we can do, he’ll be prepared, certainly, to help.”

He added: “It’s easy sat here, you guys [the media] are sat here, everybody else is sat there, ‘Put some money in!’. How much has he put in? A hundred million? Bought it, then £5 million a year. How long’s he had it? Ten years? There’s £50 million. Doesn’t seem to be taking much out of it.

“It’s easy for everybody else to say ‘You’ve got to put some money in’. And I remind everybody, how many people would actually enjoy doing it?

“And I guess if we were up in the top six he does enjoy that, that’s fine. But he wants to be putting his money in where he can see where we’ve got a chance of being successful.”

Is McCarthy more likely to stay with the Blues following those conversations? “Well, I never said I was going, did I? I said I’d talk to him and see what happens.

“I’ve told you, I do not want to be sat here at the start of next season thinking ‘There’s only been so many thousand season tickets sold, there’s apathy around the place’.

“I don’t want that. I don’t want to be here under those circumstances because I want to be here where people are enjoying their football and supportive of the players, supportive of me and we’re back where we were 12 months, 18 months ago, it was brilliant.

“It’s not been great, it’s not been easy, it’s not been nice, that’s for all of us. So I’d like for the club to be back in that position and then I can enjoy it more.”

Did Evans look to gee him up or reaffirm his belief that the Blues boss is the man to see Town out of danger in the final eight games?

“I’m not looking for that, I don’t seek that kind of a conversation out,” McCarthy continued.

“The best compliment I’ve ever had from him was when we were talking about clubs spending 10s and 20s and 30s and 40 millions and, being brutally honest, I’d love to be at that club and somebody saying to me ‘You’ve got to get promoted this year or you’ll get the sack’.

“And he said to me ‘Well, if I was one of those clubs you’d be the first person I’d call’. I don’t need any more support than that, that’ll do for me.”

Reflecting further on Evans’s comment, he added: “That would be nice if I find out one day, wouldn’t it? It’s never been the case. It was the nicest compliment, I wasn’t seeking that.

“I had a searingly honest conversation with him, I’m ambitious I don’t want to be where I am, not here, I’m not on about the club, I’m on about the position that we’re in, and neither does he.

“Villa was coming up and somewhere else and I just said I’d love to have that opportunity, don’t ever think I don’t want that.

“I don’t want to be here thinking ‘We’ll just keep Ipswich in the Championship and I’m happy and Marcus is happy’ because that’s not the case. And it was nice, he said ‘If I was at one of those clubs you’d be the first person I’d call’. I thought ‘I’ll take that’.”

Does McCarthy feel that managers can get typecast, that he’s a boss people view as one who can do well on a tight budget? “As long as I’ve got a CV that enough people say ‘That’s the type of manager you want to go to and give him a job’.

"But I just don’t want to be that [sort of manager], not at all. I’ve been better than that.”

Looking back at his time at Town, he continued: “It’s worked a lot better for three and a half years prior to where we are now, I guess, the last 12 months. No, not the last 12 months, we finished seventh last season, for God’s sake.

“This season it’s not worked as well. I think previously he’s been pretty happy with his lot, finishing sixth, finishing seventh in the last two years.

“And if that’s where we could get next season, be challenging for the play-offs, then that’s always going to be a good result for us.

“But he can’t just keep… I don’t know, find somebody else to keep throwing £5 million at it and be happy about it. I don’t know anyone who does that.”

McCarthy has made a significant profit in the transfer market while with Town but dismissed the idea that players have been sold from under him by Evans.

“That sounds like Marcus just comes and says ‘We’re selling him’ and you’ve got no say in it at all, that’s not the case.

“I’m listening to people talking about Hazard at Chelsea and they’re saying ‘Abramovich won’t sell his best players’ and the agent and the chairman of Real Madrid are saying ‘If the player says he wants to go, it’s pretty difficult to stop it’.

“And so Tyrone Mings has come from nothing and he gets sold for £8 million. Wow. How could we stop that?

“Murph’s 33 and he goes for £3 million and, I don’t know, doubles, trebles his wages. If they get promoted he’s on bonkers dough, and they will get promoted.

“There are certain things that you can’t really stop. And then it’s up to me to get other players in and try and patch it up or try and make it better eventually.

“And up until this season I’ve done it pretty well. This season’s not been great. I go back to my original point, let’s finish this season, let’s deal with Saturday, please God we get three points out of that and we can move forward, and then we’ll see what happens.

“But I’m not having that perception that they get sold from under my nose and there’s nothing I can do about it. Not with Marcus, players want to go and at some stages they’ll just have to go.”

McCarthy says the Championship has changed a lot within a relatively short space of time: “There’s been a lot of talk before about having a Premier League division two, which I think is complete nonsense, to be quite honest with you, because if you’re in Prem two you’re still in division two.

“We’re still in the second division in my view. Being in ‘the Championship’ doesn’t make it any more sexy than the second division, to be quite honest.

“But there almost is by default a Premier League division two in terms of the ones who have come down with all the money.

“And it always surprises me when people say ‘By the way, they’ve still got parachute payments, they’ve got £16 million’. I’m thinking ‘How have they got that, they must have been out of it for four years’. They’re in their fourth season and they’re still getting it.

“It does make it tougher, there’s no doubt about it, in terms of what people can spend and the wages they can spend.

“I remember leaving Wolves and the thought was that the TV money wasn’t going to go up, it was going to go down. And it actually doubled, it went from £1.3 billion to £3 billion, I believe.

“And consequently all the ones in the Premier League have got more money and if they come down they’ve got more money.

“And that was [from] four seasons ago, so whoever has come up and down, if you go through the league, there’s probably 18 of them that have been in the Premier League, maybe more now.

“And how many have been in it recently? Go through them, Fulham, Norwich, Villa, Newcastle, Wigan… and then there’s Sheffield Wednesday who got taken over and they’re paying their front four a bonkers amount of money.

“It has changed from that point of view. There are some though that are getting a lot more money and they’re no better, to be honest. There is that as well.”

Photo: TWTD

trncbluearmy added 18:05 - Mar 30 Heard it all before, don`t believe you
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ipswich4life added 18:13 - Mar 30 Hahaha 5 million a year wow that's peanuts in today's football,if he's not happy to spend his money then Hmm maybe he SHOULDNT have bought a football club,mick everyone had enough of you and your crap football then acting like your the best thing since sliced bread,please just walk away,Evans you gave town fans nothing but boredom for 10 years time to sell up,clubs a joke from top to bottom MICK OUT EVANS OUT

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Gforce added 18:23 - Mar 30 Think I've only witnessed 6 decent games in two years.Enough is enough of this dire,bland,terrible,boring,horrible,turgid,mindnumbing dull football. Been following the blues for 40 years,but as they say in the dragons den "I'M OUT"
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Gforce added 18:26 - Mar 30 Think I've only witnessed 6 decent games in two years.Enough is enough of this dire,bland,terrible,boring,horrible,turgid,mindnumbing dull football. Been following the blues for 40 years,but as they say in the dragons den "I'M OUT"
1

therein61 added 18:30 - Mar 30 More spin and inane drivel by a man well past his sell by date
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Mark added 18:41 - Mar 30 “So I guess it's for me to put a proposal to him in terms of players and what it's going to cost." We were told that is exactly what happened in December. McCarthy provided Evans with the list of players, then Evans failed to sign any of them meaning we ended up with only loans and non-league signings. If that is going to change, surely ITFC would now be shouting about it to sell season tickets. As they are not, I do not believe it will happen. We are not asking the owner to splash crazy money on expensive players, but to INVEST money in signing good young players who will hopefully appreciate in value and take us forwards. We are not asking the manager to get the team to play like Real Madrid, but we would like us to pass the ball properly, attack teams, create chances and score goals. It is not too much to ask is it?

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Pencilpete added 18:47 - Mar 30 I'd have sympathy for Big Mick and the circumstances he has to work under if he didn't persist with defensive teams with 7 at the back and his continual picking of certain players no matter how badly they perform. Just because we don't have as much cash as some other clubs is not reason not to play our talented young attacking players like Bishop, Dozzell our young attacking full backs ... but they have had to sit on the bench watching Skuse and Douglas and more recently Skuse and Diagoraga pass it sideways and backwards all match.

3

BlueMachines added 19:15 - Mar 30 I've enjoyed one game of football in 4.5 years. Against Middlesbrough when MM was ill. Otherwise almost zero entertainment throughout. ☹️
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vanmunt added 19:42 - Mar 30 Blimey, I have read some tripe in my life but this takes the biscuit... the man is a buffoon, Douglas and Scuse the worse midfield pairing in modern football history and if it wasn't for mockery and a national joke Douglas would still be playing. Just do one you mellon, the thought of your smug head in the dugout for the first game of the season makes me want to take up drinking bleach as a hobby.

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carsey added 19:54 - Mar 30 For all those who say Mick needs more money I say yes it would help BUT it won't change the style of football he plays. It's been said many times by many people the Portsmouth and Lincoln's of this world play decent football on much less wages than Ipswich Town pay because the managers and coaches of those clubs get the players to buy into proper entertaining football. No amount of money will change McCarthy's​ approach to the game. Don't believe me just ask Wolves and Sunderland supporters.

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runaround added 19:56 - Mar 30 Mick is talking the talk but now needs to walk the walk. Go out to destroy Birmingham & Wigan stop worrying about the opposition, if they score the first goal we just have to get the next 2!! I know it's not as easy as that but going out with a positive attitude and mindset makes a difference & gives the fans something to get behind
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Keaneish added 19:59 - Mar 30 Christ! The amount he repeats "5 million quid". Its nonsense. This is the problem with Mick. Not only is he out of touch but he's terrible at reading context. 5 million quid to Evans is about 6% of his net worth. How many of us on here would gladly put in 6% of our annual salary to run this club? In this interview Mick paints Evans as a martyr.
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OldClactonBlue added 20:02 - Mar 30 Evans out, Milne out, McCarthy out.
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MicksZzzTactics added 20:05 - Mar 30 Hmmm 'sounds' just peachy doesn't it, and as the revered Walt Whitman said: "ALL FAULTS MAY BE FORGIVEN OF HIM WHO HAS PERFECT CANDOR" right???.... right???.... LOL! :-) Nahhh not quite, as on the proverbial 'BS Meter' this here latest spin rank somewhere around here if you ask me: ....so in other words you were WRONG!!! dear Mr. Whitman! Thus as for the Dino's perceived honorable & aweinspiring "candor", well imho he can bloody choke on it like Bart Simpsons here!: https://giphy.com/gifs/3orieNpusPVNMsEGNW/html5 MM & ME out!, Yesterday, Today ... and Tomorrow!

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pragmatic added 20:19 - Mar 30 Geddis 78 gd points anyone who feels for the club should support the team to secure safety after that hopefully sort out the issues
1

DurhamTownFan added 20:26 - Mar 30 Keanish: quite a lot of people do put 6% in for their season ticket! Completely agree with you though
2

TimmyH added 20:49 - Mar 30 I read the first half of the many paragraphs above and then just gave up...it really was like reading a load of twaddle with nothing definite which would raise your eyebrows, just the same old same. 'competitive' mentioned numerous times (what ever that means), Evans backing McCarthy as always and the continuation of looking at other clubs financial excesses. McCarthy you've been here 4 1/2 years and the longer you keep us lingering around in this league the more other clubs that go in and out of the Premiership will have financial advantages over us...your getting us nowhere fast, go in the summer!

8

blue75 added 21:03 - Mar 30 Playing football doesn't cost a penny it just needs a manager who knows how. McCarthy will never be that man to scared to lose. Hopefully once we're safe Evans will do the right thing and let him go!! The only way to increase season ticket sales.
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dirtydingusmagee added 21:31 - Mar 30 this is making me think McCarthy will be here next season ,we are being fed a load of bull s#it. Nothing will change. And the new prices makes me think Evans wants all of us ''old supporters'' out of it ,[we remember the good times and can compare with the sh#t now. The youngsters he wants to attract have never seen the good times, and can and seemingly do accept things as they are .

3

Texaco73 added 21:32 - Mar 30 I sensing a general theme in the posts that we are not buying this. The ST non-renewal must be making an impression...
3

blueboy1981 added 21:43 - Mar 30 ......... you keep mentioning what Evans is putting in - but how about considering what long suffering supporters are putting in of hard earned money, without a shred of entertainment ? Easy for someone taking around a £million every year OUT of the Club in wages - may I suggest ... !!! Good Managers can, and do, have success - without a cheque book . That's the difference between the best, and also rans. A cheque book for MM would make no difference - Evans is no fool, and knows that. It would mean more money wasted. Tactics, and no Plan B is the major problem at Ipswich Town, and will continue to be under McCarthy.

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midastouch added 22:50 - Mar 30 Marcus Evans, it's quite simple, put up or sell up! If you aren't going to put up the cash to at least make us competitive then spare us all the agony and sell up. It's simply one or the other! Stop frustrating the life out of the fans and make your decision as we can't take much more of this garbage!
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BillBlue added 22:51 - Mar 30 I haven't read the article the Headline put me off. I had just one thought "Season Ticket renewal time!"
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midastouch added 22:57 - Mar 30 And to think we're buying players for less money than a lot of Championship players are earning in just a single week! No wonder we're going downhill so fast! Shoestring isn't even the word for it! If the best you can do Marcus is fork out 10k for a non-league strikers then please just do the decent thing and sell up! You're managerial appointments have been bloody woeful! You've made yourself look totally clueless about football and it's hard to think you have the will or at least the true love of the club to dig us out of this hole! You've got next to nothing right in years as owner of this club. How many more mistakes do you need to make at our club before you start learning right from wrong?

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midastouch added 23:02 - Mar 30 To think the best manager we've had under your ownership got sacked after beating Norwich, unbelievable! All of your managerial appointments since have been utter garbage! It's been let down after let down! You say you consult far and wide on each appointment, well I don't know who exactly you have been consulting previously but whoever they are please don't bother to ask them again next time!

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