Obviously famous last words, and the summer could prove me wrong, but I do trust Ashton to get the best deals possible for the club. He did really well at Bristol getting the best money for players there, and has proven himself pretty streetwise in (the majority) of our transfer business

Strong ownership = solid transfer fee's if 'we' decided as a club that it's the right thing to do.

Our club has grown sufficiently over the last two years to become a selling club over night!

COYB

Borough blue, I'll have what you are having. Apart from delap which signings were streetwise last summer?
Getting rid of the keeper that you got up to the replace him with one worde for 10m? Loads of 10million signings for mediocre. 20 plus million only players taht have had one good season in championship?

Who should we have bought Bluewhiteboy? Easy to criticise the signings in hindsight, but we weren't exactly front of the queue for top signings and iirc we were all pretty excited about our transfers in the summer. I expect the majority will still come good.

Bluewhiteboy - Cajuste not a solid signing? £10m not a steal for him had we stayed up?

Not delighted when we managed to get Hutchinson back?

Not to mention a number of players such as Philogene, Greaves etc who are quality young players who could we go on to have good sell on value if they have good season next year, even in the championship?

And to add on Captain Ahabs point, who would you have got instead? Bet you were pretty excited about majority of our signings at the time

Simply— keep the faith !
COYB

Bluewhiteboy. Talking bs as always. We didn't hmget rid of Hladky. He refused the new contract. So his choice to go. Looking a good decision on his part isn't it(not), barely getting a game all season. Thd players we've signed pretty much fit the criteria for signing players. Young, up and coming players. I'm sure we'd all have loved us to be able to go out and sign good, experienced pl players, but that simply wasn't possible due to the psr. Or maybe ud have liked hs to ignore that and end up with a points deduction. When we get back up,(assuming that not too far away),we'll be in a much better position to sign that type of player. Also it's likely the players we have signed will have I.proved, not just as individuals, but within the style of play we adopt, having had more time to do so

I watched that Blue Monday last night, so depressing, all the talk is of relegation now, we still got 27 points to play for, 3 wins for us and 3 losses for Wolves and we catch them, which should be possible, if and only if we beat Wolves at Portman Road, I know the odds against us but surely for next 2 games we still got to hope.
In terms of signings I believe with Cajuste if we stay up we have obligation to buy and if we go down we have option to buy, you never know, he may give us another season.

Delap needs to keep scoring, when bids came in Jan he was in-form,10 goals won't justify a team paying 40 million for him I don't think, Adebayo scored 10 for Luton in Prem and he still there and Delap only scored 6 in 32 last season in Championship so if we can double money on Delap be worth taking but with the fact he isn't on loan and he is our player I think he would go on loan to Prem and we see his stock rise as with a new striker we should have enough firepower. Don't think Delap will want to go to big club to sit on bench but not overly worried re Delap as what happens to him can only be good for club whether sold, loaned or stays. We will have enough to go get a 20 mill striker.
Midfield and left back is where we need cover.
Hopefully Leeds or similar sign Davis as he has to be worth double figures now and we only paid 1 mill.

Hutchinson has been played out of position most of season so don't think he done enough to go.
Phillogene I don't think we would of signed in Jan to sell again in Summer.
Need to get players in who have excelled in Championship or have potential too, Callum Robinson would be a good shout for me or Dane Scarlett as part of deal that takes Delap to Spurs or Will Lankshear from Spurs.
The likes of Spurs, West Ham, Everton, Brentford these are the clubs who may circle our players but they won't be cheap, all on long deals so nothing to worry about.

It maybe to our advantage for last 9 games, Delap starts banging them in to get a big move, Cajuste plays out of skin to get new contract, Phillogene and Hutch hit some form.
The players and manager had a long break together so hopefully trained hard, our season will be defined on Mckenna selection for next 2 games, if he sticks with Davis I fear we will just be exploited Senymeo will have a field day.
Based on Prem experience and if all fit I'd go
Muric/Palmer
Johnson
O'Shea
Burgess
Townsend
Cajuste
Phillips
J Clarke L
Broadhead 10
Hutchinson R
Delap
I think Muric is better shot stopper, relegation experience and was brilliant vs Iceland but I don't mind Palmer
Phillogene and Enciso could be better impact subs bit I do think if we take lead we should go 4-4-2
Only my opinion bit we may aswell go for it now.

Hladky must be kicking himself. Good chance he would have played a fair few prem games this year had he stayed.

Ashton's words offer some reassurance. I have confidence that he and the club ownership know what they are doing. They had to build a squad with next season's Championship promotion bid in mind. There was little point signing players on huge wages who would not be prepared to drop to the Championship, leaving us stuck with unhappy liabilities. We will know how good the signings are a year from now.

I hope those clubs thinking of paying £10M+ for Davis haven't been reading your posts, Leejames99.
blues1, usual lack of respect for others from you.

If we do go down, could we possibly loan Delap out to a Prem club for the season and see where we are at Christmas?
Personally I think he may even stay for a season, either way its a win win for us.
A lot of points still to be played for...…It isn't time for the fat lady yet.

Delap will only move to a club who will play him… he not going back to a City to sit on the bench…
Can see him at Town next year

Agree with you Karlosfandangal - plenty of examples where players' careers have gone south as a result of moving to bigger clubs/european competitions/etc. Delap is young and hungry but he wants to play and develop. The team was built with the future in mind.

People moaning at hladky, he said he was settled, family settled he wanted to stay so clearly club jacked on him. Bet if he was offered half of what muric got he'd have been here.

Shouldn't have got phillips and cajuste. Two loans players very unlikely to be here the next season.

No I wasn't over the moon about sitning Hutchinson for that kind of cash either big gamble which looks not to have paid off

Bluewhiteboy. No, he didnt. He was offered a new 2 year contract but rejected it . So clearly not as happy as u seen to believe. More thsn likely wadnt promised to be number 1 and thought he'd have more chance elsewhere. So u think we shouldn't have signed Phillips and cajuste? The best pairing we've had in the midfield( when both fit). And Cajuste who's arguably our player of the season? So, as some1 else asked, who would you have signed instead? Who we could afford btw?

@carberry another pointless post from you, this is a forum for opinions, all this respect nonsense, Davis has been great in a Town shirt in League 1 and Championship but this year how he plays or has asked to play hasn't worked and why Mckenna keeps playing this way nobody knows, we concede more goals than anyone and are left wide open when Davis goes on runs which all season have resulted in 1 goal and 2 assists and we have an abundance of left wingers, so yes I don't think Davis is quick enough for this position against Premier League wingers. Doesn't mean he hasn't been a great player for Town, he has but personally I think we are much better in attack and defending with Townsend. I'm not sure he will get move to Prem as every team knows to exploit us when he runs off.
Let's see what happens vs Vournemouth if he sticks with Davis and puts Morsy in.

We need a much bigger financial budget if we are going to be a Premier club. Bournemouth, Brighton and Brentford arguably smaller clubs than us have established themselves because they have recruited players from further afield and not lightweights from the championship Delap apart who are never going to be Premier players unless they develop physically. Unless things change in the way we recruit players we will always be a yo yo championship club.

Mixed bag l would say. One point thoug. Whilst Philogene, Delap, Clarke, Hutchinson and Ensiso
are clearly young players with lots of potential, l do question the wisdom a number of them together. The front four against Forest were all under 22. Playing against experienced top level,players. Hmm.

At what point in 2024 did we start planning for the Premier League and recruitment needs to stay up ? it probably wasn't when we signed Al-Hamadi in January 24? This summer we've bought what we Know and I think that was wise but its clear we need a better scouting network when we return to the Premier league.
Delap, O'shea, Cajuste have been good signings
Hutchinson - Good
lad from Luton looked good, Szmodics Good
Clarke, Philogene have taken their time but are ones for the future - good-ish
I think Grviees and Kalvin Philips are in the bracket - expected more.
Muric has made some massive howlers I think we've had the worst keepers in the league
The learn seems to be that 30Million probably gets you a premier league player and 20Mill is a gamble

We've been over run in centre midfield- MOrsy, Luongo and Taylor possibly aren't good/mobiile enough and Cajuste and Philips are too injured, the 4231 tactics have certainly not helped, and we've missed Chaplin more than we think - we need to recruit over the summer in these 2 positions and we will be fine next year.

We need an improvement to the Blue Monday Pod if this is the best that we have.It is so frustrating.Cut out the waffle,tell Ben to stop continually interupting the other members of the panel.Stop the fawning over Woolfenden .Debate the performance of our manager so far this season and without fear or favour The leam of local scribes are even worse - a set of mumblers.Come on Ipswich surely we can do better than this.

Leejames99, my post was trying to add a bit of humour, sad you missed the joke. And you think it's OK to disrespect people on here - well you are one of the first to bleat when people just disagree with you.

Tedray, spot on. There's a total lack of criticism because they are all fearful that if they put their heads above the parapet they will have their privileges taken away. So many questions to raise but they don't dare. Call themselves journalists?

Thank you Carberry just when I thought it was just me.I had started to question the reason that I was watching Blue MondaySurely it is far healthier to debate matters which seem "off limits" than take a sycophantic approach.

How do we know that delap will want to leave..
I personally think if we go down he might stay for a season he's only 21 and for his development it would be better than bench warming...