Lambert: We'll Give Marcus Everything We've Got Wednesday, 1st Jan 2020 19:10 Blues manager Paul Lambert revealed that discussions regarding his new contract had been ongoing with owner Marcus Evans for more than a month. The 50-year-old penned a four-year extension to his Town deal, which now runs to 2025, prior to today's draw at his old club Wycombe. “I just wanted to see you for another five years!” Lambert joked when asked about the new deal by the media. “Listen, Marcus has been great and I think he recognises the work that’s happened here in the just over a year we’ve been in here. “I’ve never seen a massive club as low as it was, the things that were wrong here were incredible. As I said before, the disconnection with everybody, [it was important to get] everybody back together. “It’s small steps. I hate using that word project because it shouldn’t be in football but if people want to call it that then people can call it that. “Marcus asked me to come and rebuild everything and connect with it and that’s what we’ll try and do and hopefully step by step we’ll have a really good time at it. Put it this way, it’ll not be for the lack of trying.” Lambert confirmed that being offered the new deal wasn’t a reaction to his comments after the Boxing Day draw with Gillingham when he appeared to call his future into question. “This has been going on for I would say at least a month and a bit, at least a month and a bit, maybe two months,” he reflected. “There were things going on behind the scenes out of anybody’s control that I had to contend with but it was always there. “It’s easy to sign something when things are going great and when people say ‘He signed because of the [comments on Boxing Day]’. Not at all. “I love the club, I love the support behind it, I love the area. Who knows, this might be my last gig, I don’t know, but I really do love it here.” Lambert concurred that the new deal gives both him and the club stability going forward. “We’ve got some young guys there who are going to get really good, including [Armando] Dobra and Idris [El Mizouni] and others as well, some really good talent here,” he added. “If you give them a few years, you’re looking at something really good here.” Was that partly why he was keen to sign a lengthy new deal? “If you put everything into the melting pot, that and the support, I want to see Ipswich do really well, I want to try and be part of it and when it does eventually finish and the contract does run out or whatever happens, you want people to go, ‘They did one helluva job there’." The deal is the longest handed out by Evans since he took charge just over 12 years ago, which Lambert admits is a show of faith in. “Yes, we were speaking about it a few months and you see other managers say they’ve signed five years and Marcus [spoke] to me a while back [about] the whole thing. “He’s been great that way. But we will give him everything we’ve got. We’ll have head knocks along the way, me and him will have arguments and all that sort of thing, but the two of us want to try and do the best for the club within the parameters that he’s asked me to do it within.” Asked how the discussions started, he added: “We speak regularly and he asked me what did I think longer term and where I saw the club because I said before that the club was so low. “There were so many things wrong. Young guys had to get a chance, the Community Trust, I always go back to the Community Trust, re-engaging fans and getting people back into the stadium was important and then you had to concentrate on the football team, which everyone was criticising, they were taking upper cuts all over the place. You had to re-engage everything. “But Marcus came and asked me whether I’d look at it and, as I said before, I love the club, I really do, it’s a brilliant club and you take the little bits that come with it when the team doesn’t get a result, that’s normal, that’s at most clubs, but it’s a fantastic club.” But while the club’s long-term future is important, Lambert is aware that the short-term, achieving promotion in the second half of the season, is currently the priority. “We will try everything we can,” he said. “We don’t have a divine right, you look at Sheffield United, six years [in League One], Sunderland, dear oh dear. We were relegated last year and sometimes that can hurt a helluva lot of teams. “We’ve responded in the right way. If we’d have had the run back to front, if we’d gone the other way and had the start we’re having now and then 15 or 16 games into it [had the early season form] people would think you’re a genius. But we’ve done it the other way. “But the big thing for me the other way was the relegation thing, that they came out of the traps [so quickly]. “Short-term, you absolutely want to come out of the league, long-term you’ve got one helluva job here, that’s for sure.” Asked which of his previous experiences he is drawing on as he tries to turn the club around, he reflected: “Every job’s tough, even if you’re doing really well. "I’ve been fortunate enough to play in Germany and saw how things worked there and being experienced through playing football you handle pressure situations whether there’s criticism or praise. I know because Ive been at massive clubs. I’m pretty level-headed that way.” Quizzed on the club’s support, he added: “The fans have been unbelievable. I came here, dear oh dear, I’ve never seen a club as big as this as low as this. But the fans have been absolutely brilliant, I’ve got nothing but praise for them, they come in their numbers to watch us and I’m delighted with the support that they give us.”
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