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Ashton: Readjustment Takes a Bit of Time But I'd Like to Feel We've Come Through That Tuesday, 14th Oct 2025 14:46
Chairman and CEO Mark Ashton believes the Blues have come through a period of readjustment following relegation to the Championship and have begun to gain momentum over the last few weeks.
Town had a slow start to the season with the squad in a state of flux during August, drawing three and losing one in the league in the first month of the campaign, but since the transfer window closed have won three and drawn one, including the 3-1 derby victory over Norwich City prior to the international break, and are unbeaten in five ahead of Friday’s live-on-Sky visit to second-in-the-table Middlesbrough.
“The welcome back to the Championship has been what we expected - extremely tough,” Ashton told talkSPORT. “It’s one of the toughest and best divisions in the world for a reason. I think anyone beats anyone on a given day, there’s never much between the sides and the start has been tough, albeit we’ve started to gain momentum in recent weeks.”
Ashton dismissed the suggestion that the Blues not winning promotion back to the Premier League at the first attempt would be viewed as failure.
“I wouldn’t deem it as failure,” he said. “I’ve never started a season at any club where promotion wasn’t the game.
“We’re very clearly set on what we want to build. We want to build a club for the long term, a lot of good things are going on here, a lot of infrastructure projects being built.
“We’re still in essence year four into the project where we’re rebuilding the club but ultimately promotion is the absolute aim.”
Reflecting on last season’s relegation from the top flight, he continued: “I think the biggest challenge we faced was 20 years outside the top flight and only one year in the Championship, so you just couldn’t build the infrastructure quickly enough.
“And ultimately we weren’t good enough, we couldn’t build that quickly enough once we got to the Premier League.
“The next time we get there, the training ground will be complete, recruitment has been enhanced, staffing has been enhanced, the whole club has moved forward, revenues have increased, which gives us a better platform to try and be more competitive.
“It’s the best league in the world for a reason, it’s brutal, and it does leave some scars when you come back down that you need to work through.
“Our challenge hasn’t been recruiting players, it’s been retaining the best ones because clubs want your players. Some of those have played out in the press, the likes of Omari Hutchinson to Nottingham Forest for the best part of £40 million, [Liam] Delap to Chelsea, [Nathan] Broadhead to Wrexham for £10 million.
“We’ve sold well, we’ve brought in £80 million in revenue, we’ve bought some players, that’s part of our model, but that readjustment back to the Championship does take a little bit of time and I’d like to feel we’ve now just come through that.”
Meanwhile, Ashton expressed support in some areas but also some concerns regarding the recently established Independent Football Regulator, which has been instituted to protect and promote the sustainability of English football.
Last week, the Department of Culture, Media and Sport announced that former television executive David Kogan had been appointed as the chair and Richard Monks, formerly of the Financial Conduct Authority, the CEO.
“The regulator’s here ultimately because football couldn’t do a deal for football and that disappoints and saddens me,” Ashton said. “But we are where we are.
“The regulator has a role to play, the regulator is not going to go away. I think it’s important that it is the clubs that engage with the regulator because clubs are very multi-dimensional organisations and there are a lot of intricacies in running these organisations, so I think it’s important the regulator listens.
“I think the boundaries for the regulator have to be set really clearly because regulatory creep does worry me, and we need to help the regulator understand the nuances of the game.
“Ultimately, there are things that are very positive that I think they bring, none of us wants to see clubs in distress, but also I don’t want to see any form of controls that prevent growth by the regulator, and I think that’s key to the industry.”
Meanwhile, the logo from Ed Sheeran’s new album Play will appear on Barcelona shirts for their women’s game against Granada CF and the men’s Clasico against Real Madrid.
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Hard to argue with any of that. The club is in great hands. Progression should be steady and sustainable, damn us for getting to the Prem so quickly! :D Sounds like we made the best of a tough situation and keep to the business principles which will look after the club in the long term. I doff my cap to Mr Ashton.
£80m in and by no means has that money been spent yet. It will be interesting to see what MA does in the January window, I simply don't believe the American Owners ill want to spend 26-7 in this division
It’s been a 14 month ongoing period of adjustment.., and the only progress is we don’t need to be elite now to win games.
We spent £200 million. Made a manager one of the best paid in Europe, we’ve lost more top flight games in top flight football than anyone in Europe (fourth worst) and we haven’t played at that level since May!
And we can now do relatively well in the EFL.., 23/24 was unbelievable, but it looks like the outlier, we need three times anyone else’s budget to be competitive outwith that season, or massively uncompetitive.
Other clubs have made the step, we don’t have the quality OFF the pitch to be establish ourselves at that level.., not a crime, but some candour would be nice.
We aren’t elite or even on or close to that journey.
We’re good EFL operator limited by Ashtons EFL networks, owners that don’t want to be here, and a manager who touts himself to numerous clubs, and only stays to be paid well above his work based on merit.
Some big decisions to be made more down.
The new owners will have bigger ambition than EFL and platitudes.
We should be a top half Premier League club when you invest £200 million.
It’s all too easy. Agency and accountability please and NOT the club indexed to ONE employee.
Imagine actually believing the nonsense DH writes. Mythical 200m invested is a good start, and then saying 200m for a promoted club should get you top half.
I'm struggling in darkhorse's numbers. My guess is they don't work in accounts. Player sales, promotion money and parachute payment were they considered? If 200mil spent means top half prem, should every prem team and some champ teams be in the top 10?
Thanks for link to interview Mark Ashton is a very experienced and clever CEO, Ipswich are lucky to have him.
But even better he loves to take the piss out of the scum, who noticed the the Nunez Corner Flag in the opening wide shot placed in the right hand corner
Bazza that £80 mil is not available to spend under current rules. We have spent a good chunk and I'm sure some funds will be available in Jan but we needed to adjust and balance the books from a PSR standpoint.
Hey Darkhorse are you still upset over the derby loss? Get over it and move on! Sometimes I wish I could mark someone down twice, it’s normally every time you you touch the keyboard!
Great interview, very lucky to have Ashton and KM, going to be stronger next time!
This only needs to be a shortish post, most of what MA says I agree with. My main disagreement with him is I believe not getting promotion at the end of this season, would be a failure ( my opinion of course, no way anyone can state that as a fact ). I'm basing it on a fact though, that we have spent circa 200M on players inside the last couple of years. Not a big deal if you're in the Premier League, but in the Championship, its one whole different kettle of fish. If money did actually talk, we'd win this league blindfolded. So I'm looking forward to promotion, not worried about how it's achieved though would prefer avoiding the dreaded play offs. Something I've never agreed with anyway.
Feel free to disagree ( hopefully friendly ), it's what keeps this site so entertaining!
Where did the 200 million figure come from? Some of the money spent has been recouped with good profits! Just done some sums including players out on loan Muric and Ogbene, I reached around 130/140 million spent on players still registered with us! Also Armchair I don’t think he is going to say publicly that anything less than promotion is a failure , he will know where they expect to be!
There are golden nuggets of truth In what Dark Horse says.
We need three times anyone else's budget to be competitive.
Only thing I'd argue with DH is that no top players wanted to join us, e.g. the guy who plays No. 9 for Greece. We had to make do with players who were well down our wanted list, and overpaid accordingly. I don't think we can blame Mark Ashton for that.
But... Omari and Broadhead we got great money for, due to the crazy price inflation of playing for England U21s and Wrexham having money.
I do agree that the owners want out, and the Brett email was dynamite.
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