Christian Walton doesn’t need reminding of the fact that his Town debut in last season’s home defeat by Bolton — Saturday’s opponents at Portman Road on the first day of the new season — turned into a nightmare as he conceded five goals.

Walton is satisfied that the outcome this weekend will be a whole lot different, stating: “It wasn’t the best start to my Ipswich career, obviously, but I’m not going to look too much into that. I hadn’t played with any of the players before and I had only trained with them for a few days.

“Turning up and playing in front of 25,000 fans, it wasn’t easy as I had no experience of our style of play. Yes, it was difficult, but it will be a lot different this year. Thankfully, after that one and over the course of the season I thought we did well and we’ll be looking to improve on that.

“I see it as a huge positive that we’re at home on the opening day and from my point of view it can’t come quickly enough. Yes, it will be a tough because they are a strong team, one of several strong teams in this division, but we want to show we are the best in the division and getting off to a good start can only help. It’s a long season, as we all know, and we aim to be consistently good throughout.

“I’m up for it and I think we’ve all got to be ready for it. I know the result on Saturday, whether we win, lose or draw, isn’t going to define our season, but we want to win and we want to have a winning mentality from the moment we arrive at the stadium on Saturday. We want it all through the week as well so that it does come out on match day, which is a big thing.”

Town are one of the bookies’ favourites to win promotion, or at least clinch a top-six finish, but Walton added: “I don’t think that’s any surprise. I think that was always going to be the case, given the size of the club, the players we have signed and the quality that we already had here. Yes, the expectation is going to be there, but that’s been the case here for a number of years.

“I’ll thrive on it to be honest. I enjoy being part of a big club and I think it’s the same with the rest of the players. When you sign for Ipswich you know what you’re getting into and it’s something you dream about when you are growing up, playing for a big outfit.

“We’ll all be ready for it, the expectation, and we’ll need to manage it at times, but the supporters here helped us in the tough times last year and were unbelievable through the good times when we had some great results. It obviously works both ways but I’m really looking forward to it now.”

Last season was ultimately one of disappointment for Town and their fans as they finished in 11th place, 13 points adrift of sixth-placed Wycombe Wanderers, and Walton continued: “It was difficult last season with a new group of players and then a change of manager. We also had a new coaching staff and other new members of staff behind the scenes, so there were a lot of changes. I know it’s an old cliché but Rome wasn’t built in a day.

“Things take time and that’s clear to see here. When the new manager came in he changed the style of play to one that we really enjoy playing and really turned it around.

“I think I saw a stat that said if we had been able to play the whole season the way we played the games under the new manager we would have finished second in the table and gone up, so if we can maintain the consistency throughout the whole season we won’t be far off and could reach our target, which is obviously to get promoted.”

There will be a close-to-capacity crowd at Portman Road — the club have sold almost 17,000 season tickets for the new campaign — and that underlines the level of expectation from supporters yearning for a return to the second tier.

But Walton believes that things are far more positive than they were a year ago, adding: “This summer feels a lot more settled to last. We haven’t lost any of our best players like other clubs have; in fact, we have been able to take other clubs’ best players and bring them here.

“It’s a far more settled dressing room and we have had some good trips away in pre-season with good fixtures and good games. We’ve prepared as well as we could have done and we’re ready for the start.

“Individually, we all know that we want to be getting promoted. That’s why you come to a club like this, to have success, to get back in the Championship and climb the leagues. I want promotion and so does everyone else. When it all comes together we know the target.

“The fans want it, the owners want it, everyone at the club wants it. But while we have targets that we want to meet we don’t want to put too much pressure on ourselves and then everyone panic if we’re not matching targets. Put it this way — we all know what we have to do to get this club promotion back to the Championship.

“Pre-season is massive, really very important, and I think the games can be under-estimated. We have played some really tough teams — Arsenal, West Ham, Crystal Palace and Millwall on Saturday, which was more similar to what we can expect in our division.

“It took us time to get going in the first half but I thought we did well and showed some really good positive signs in the second. I think we’re a settled group now and ready for the off.”

Photo: Matchday Images

Vancouver_Blue added 16:07 - Jul 25 Fingers (and toes) crossed, that this will be our year.
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itfcfan7 added 16:09 - Jul 25 I love Ipswich Town
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Stato added 16:21 - Jul 25 We didn't finish 9th Phil, it was 11th. We played a back 4 against Bolton in that heavy defeat and switching to a back 5 has made us so much more difficult to score against.
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chepstowblue added 16:24 - Jul 25 Let's hope he's right. Ipswich 1 Bolton 9 would be a far from satisfactory start !!
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Suffolkboy added 16:26 - Jul 25 Itfcfan7 – looks like you and CW are very much on the same page ; with 17000 season tickets sold ,and loads of us only able to visit irregularly there's a huge mountain of goodwill already building for 2022/ 2023 ! COYB
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