Town will return to the Championship in a much better place than they left it a year ago, according to forward Conor Chaplin.

The Blues’ stay in the Premier League came to a close on Sunday after just a single season but Kieran McKenna and his playing squad maintain the confidence that they are well-placed for a successful campaign next term.

Early bookmakers’ odds agree with that belief, with Town tipped as the favourites to claim the Championship title ahead of fellow relegated side Southampton and losing play-off finalist Sheffield United.

Chaplin believes the Blues faithful have deserved more than the four victories achieved in the top flight this season, particularly since only one of those came on home soil.

“It’s important from our side to show our appreciation for the fans,” he said following the defeat to West Ham United.

“The last two or three years speaks for itself. It’s easy to be a fan when you’re coming off the last two years, but to be how they’ve been all season when we’ve not won a lot of games, to keep coming in their numbers and keep making a lot of noise, they’ve been a credit to the football club.

“They’ve been an incredible part of making this journey as enjoyable as it can be even though we’ve not won as many games. That’s probably the biggest disappointment from my part because I feel like they’ve been incredible all season.

“We need them to stick with us, we need them to understand that next season’s going to be another challenge and to keep a positive spin on everything.

“This club is in an incredibly better position than it was 12 months ago. A relegation doesn’t change that, the club’s on an upward trajectory, for sure. To bridge the gap, the fans will help us massively as well.”

Chaplin also insists that Town can swing momentum back in their favour having suffered a difficult adjustment from their success in the Championship a year ago to their struggles in the Premier League this season.

The 28-year-old said: “At a club with a culture like ours with individuals at the football club like ours, it’s null and void. When we come back in, the mindset is completely different.

“For me, I’ll have a little bit of reflection of the season but it has to change straight away. You can’t have any hangover and that’s clear from us players and the staff.

“We won’t wait for people on that, as a senior player I won’t wait for people on that to come in no sulking. If you don’t want to be here, you’re not here. But if you want to be here, we’ve all got a common goal and that’s something I’ll be massive on.”

For the Blues, the ambition for next season is clear. An instant return to the top flight is undoubtedly the target, but Chaplin knows the challenges that the Championship will pose.

“I don’t think there’s too much to be said about that,” he continued. “We know it’s an incredibly tough league, especially with the teams that are coming down and the teams that have come up in terms of finances.

“It’s probably going to be one of the hardest Championships for a long time in terms of the stature of the clubs there, but the goal is the goal.

“If you’re not looking forward to that and you can’t get yourself up for that, there’s something seriously wrong.”

With the fixtures for the new EFL season set to be released on Thursday 26th June, it will not be long before attention turns to preparing for the new campaign with another intense pre-season programme.

For now, though, Chaplin and his teammates can enjoy a few weeks away once the season’s post-mortem has been complete to recharge and gear up for the big launch again in August.

He said: “A lot of downtime and a lot of chill time. We all spend an awful lot of time away from our families, so we’ll be with our families as much as possible. A lot of rest and then getting ready and preparing for pre-season.”

Photo: Alfie Cosgrove/News Images/Sipa USA

Bazza8564 added 09:46 - May 27 It's not all doom and gloom, we will get over this quickly and getting the Delap deal done ASAP will help us start thinking against about incoming players. With Palmer, Oshea, Greaves, Clarke, Szmodics, Ogbone, Jaden all on long term deals we will have a great backbone even if we do lose Omari (release is £35m), and we get irresistible offers for Lief and Ben J. I think I was one of many who underestimated the gulf in class between CH and PL, we need to make sure we use whatever war chest materialises this summer aggressively. Yes, we are in a better place than a year back, but we now need to ensure we build on it and hit the ground running in August. As for us fans, well we will still be there, I believe we will still fill the ground, and we will quickly forget this season after a couple of early wins

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Linkboy13 added 10:04 - May 27 It's very hard during a difficult season to keep everyone happy you have to be careful not to make decisions that's going to upset team spirit. It's obvious McKenna is very popular with the players and the reaction after the West Ham game the fans apart from a few numpties on here are right behind the manager. It's vital we keep hold of the present coaching team. If we do have to replace them i hope it's not with one of the big name flops Gerrard, Rooney, Dyche etc Lampard's done ok at Coventry but he's already turned us down saying we are not big enough for him. It's important if we do have to bring someone else in he's got no baggage. There are up and coming coaches out there Keiran McKenna who's he never heard of him i rest my case.

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darkhorse28 added 10:27 - May 27 12 months ago we had a Leagie One P&L, a group of players who had made history, and were together, motivated, and what they lacked in quality, they ran through brick walls to make sure they made up for in desire, togetherness and results. Chaplin was the essence of that, rarely seen a player work so hard. Our financial position meant we could spend more than any club ever in our position, more than any in the league (only Brighton spent more), and more than our promotion rivals spent combined. We could afford to do that because we still had Leavie One legacy financials. We brought in over a dozen new players, spent £160 million, a large portion of which will be a liability in years with EFL revenue, unless we come back up. Measurably, we signed players not much better than what we had, an improvement in quality for sure, but we didn’t build a team…, we built a collection of top EFL talent, very expensively. That never became a team…, and in my opinion, our promoted side, would beat this group in any one off game, too much desire, too much passion, too much belief in themselves and more importantly each other. The group we have expensively assembled don’t have that, maybe they will in future, maybe they won’t. Crucially, we certainly didn’t get value, for a generational level of spending. This group isn’t a league one group in a journey…., 90% of our signings have never kicked a ball at that level. Relegation is fine, normal, expected, and KM is 39, bed a baby in management terms, and hopefully his best years are ahead. We did though deliver the worst season in the clubs history, the worst home form in the clubs history, with a group who’s quality we haven’t maximised, and doesn’t represent value for the level of investment. In the context of KM agreeing to join Brighton, the owners flying from the US to make him the highest paid manager in our history, and one of the highest paid in Europe, and promise, and deliver a £160 million investment, at best, it’s really poor, and it’s instructive of where the problems are. As a senior management group there’s so much we need to do so much better, to ever have a chance at this level. So we do have better facilities at the ground, a little more quality in the group. But for the level of investment, we aren’t anywhere near where we could and should be. And no…, this group wouldn’t beat the promoted side.., I’ve never seen them run through brick walls for each other, except possibly what turned out a poor Man Utd at home. The talent ID, the coaching, the tactics, none of it is anywhere close to the required standard. We aren’t league one, we aren’t tin pot, and investment wise we were one of the biggest clubs in Europe this season. Our mentality doesn’t reflect that. Opportunity missed. Irrespective of the platitudes.

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Steve_ITFC_Sweden added 11:06 - May 27 Linkboy: I'm not sure how you measure the size of a club. Coventry is a much bigger place than Ipswich, but I wouldn't say they were a "bigger" club. I am pretty confident now that we will keep McK, and I totally agree with you that we don't want such names as Lampard and Rooney et al. They may have been great players, but they don't seem to have any serious managerial qualities. If we get a couple of decent signings in to freshen up the squad, I'm hopeful we will be there or thereabouts next season.

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Lightningboy added 11:07 - May 27 Agree darkhorse28 ^ You can't buy team spirit - that's what needs rebuilding this summer...we've looked like a team of individuals all season long...I know there's been injuries but there's been far too much chopping & changing since game 1 last August...KM would've been better off adding 8 better quality players to what we had,rather than watering down the squad with 16 average players (Delap's 1st half of the season aside).

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Bazza8564 added 11:45 - May 27 Darkhorse, really like the points you have made, my only challenge would be on the comments you have made on the longterm impact of level of investment. My understanding is that the £160m you quote revolves a lot around the "rising to" which is somewhat dependant on other factors. The true cost of outlay during the season is somewhere around £120m, although loan fees and wages will take this up. My point though is that rules around financial fair play or whatever phrase we use now relate to losses (at least for the PL years). Given that the minimum entry level Sky share for us last season was £143m plus £xm per televised match, that expenditure shouldn't actually have the long term impact you hint at. Unless I am wildly misunderstanding things. Wages, we know, are structured by division, so with two parachute payments coming and a stack of saleable assets the financial side should be ok. This summer we will sell Delap for £30m, Omari has a release clause at £35m and TWTD has talked about Davis (assume min £20m) and Johnson £10m being on the lists of others. With infrastructure covered by the Americans, I believe our financial position in isolation is much brighter with significant funs to invest from sales. Personally my opinion on where we've invested "youth for the future" was preempted around the likelihood we wouldn't survive first time and was the ceiling we could go to. The point around "running through walls together" though is spot on. and as ive commented elsewhere, im confused as to why we signed so many forward wide players when Central Midfield was so clearly a bigger priority. We signed Philogene late January and Ogbone late August when we knew how unfit both Cajuste and Phillips were. If the players I mentioned above do all move on, it's going to be one hell of a recruitment period with probably 4-5 needed minimum and another £90+m to spend. It's a big "IF" though!

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PinstripeBlue added 12:47 - May 27 Hi everyone, Just a small request—could we start using KM or KMc ? Whenever I see McK, I can’t help but read it as Mick McCarthy and it makes me scared again. Appreciate it!
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blues1 added 13:10 - May 27 Darkhorse28. No, we didnt have more to spend than any other club in our position. In fact we had less to spend than weither of the teams who came up with us, and any other team in the pl. So we were at a disadvantage straight away. As for mcken̈a agreeing cool join Brighton? Rubbish. Guy who works the training ground spoke to Mckenna at the very start of last summer, and Mckenna told him he was going nowhere. Hever had any intention of leaving last summer.

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poet added 16:04 - May 27 Nice tribute to the fans from Chaplin. We are certainly in a much better place than those dark days of Evans and McCarthy. With the right recruitment, the future will be bright.
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Stato added 17:25 - May 27 very interesting contribution @,darkhorse and nice to read comments that are balanced beyond KM is best Ipswich manager ever. I've been saying it all season but recruitment was a mixed bag and this summer we must do a beter job. Central midfield is the priority even in front if a Delap replacement. we need two good athletes to jump ahead of Morsy who has given away a ton of goals and failed to protect the 2 CBs all season. KM will hopefully stay and will hopefully show less bias towards Morsy and Hutchinson both of whom were given far more minutes than their performances deserved. We are favourites for promotion for a reason and promotion will only require a par performance but prep for the next visit to the Prem starts now.

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armchaircritic59 added 18:11 - May 27 As at least one poster said in here, the gulf between the Premier League and the Champonship is huge, and easily underestimated. Lot more technical, faster, more athleticism and sheer power, I could go on. I've watched a combination of Leeds, Burnley and Sunderland a number of times this season. my summing up is this. Leeds are probably best placed if they recruit well, then they would have a 50/50 chance of staying up. Burnley need their remarkable Championship defence to perform similar heroics or they have no chance. As for Sunderland, based purely on what I've watched, light years behind what's required, would need 5/6 genuine quality signings and their admitedly promising younger players to really step up another level. I actually hope that at least one of them can do it. It will give us all some hope that the PL hasn't become a " closed shop ". As for us, rebuild of the midfield an essential, at least one quality striker, and probably 2/3 other signings depending on who departs. We drastically need pace and physicality in the side, especially in midfield, though anywhere else wouldn't go amiss! No average Championship players please and look to Europe and beyond, particularly South America. And finally, if our Data Programme isn't fully up and running by now, I'd like to know why, as one of todays tech savvy teenagers could put it together!

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braveblue added 09:46 - May 28 Why does our spend last year rise every time it’s discussed? Why does anyone think the ‘promoted team’ would beat the current side. So much moaning on here. Mostly based on nonsense.
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bobble added 12:36 - May 28 Braveblue...the evidence of now competetive we were early in the season and the pts we gained then, versus how we played when the team was less of the regulars and more newbies suggests it may not be nonsense....
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yorkieblue62 added 12:42 - May 28 Understand why players want to sound positive but don't see how we are better off than a year ago. We have taken two steps forward from League 1 days but past 12 months represents 3 steps back as we now have to rebuild the team to compete in what will be a difficult championship. Can't expect to get 95 points again and that is being realistic.
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