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Reply | Palmer
at 13:46 21 Apr 2025
I agree. He’s been a decent signing. |
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Reply | Palmer
at 12:08 21 Apr 2025
A genuinely premier league quality keeper would have probably saved it, just as premier league quality defenders would have prevented it from being a shot that needed to be saved.
Palmer has done well since he came in, a big improvement on Muric and probably at least as well as well as Walton would have done. He’s not in the top 17 or 18 keepers in the division but is likely to rank in the top 5 in the championship. You could say the same about almost every member of our squad in their positions.
The simple fact is, individually and collectively the players/team are not good enough to compete consistently in this league. |
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Reply | Could there be a one year exemption from relegation from the Premier League?
at 10:11 21 Apr 2025
If any club goes into a new season knowing they can’t be relegated the competition is significantly devalued. The premier league properly applying their own rules would help - the Man City situation is a farce.
My suggestion is that a maximum of 2 promoted clubs can be relegated in their first season. Just think how much life it would breathe into the end of a dead premier league season like this one - us v Leicester would be huge. West Ham, Spurs and Man U would be right in it. [Post edited 21 Apr 10:12]
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Reply | I’ve watched about a thousand games at Portman Road
at 09:22 21 Apr 2025
I can’t recall the details but remember the game (and the spectacular Dixon own goal).
I can name several games over the years where I would describe the performance as pathetic, yesterday wasn’t one of them. I’ve seen us play worse than we did yesterday many times but I don’t recall ever having seen us completely outclassed from start to finish. We didn’t even have a spell of pressure, at no point was there any momentum or a feeling that we could cause them any problems. They were totally dominant and all we could do was try to contain them, which in large spells and with some good fortune we did fairly well. Without the team having togetherness and some backbone it would have been double figures. |
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Thread | I’ve watched about a thousand games at Portman Road
at 20:23 20 Apr 2025
and that is the most comfortably I’ve ever seen us get beaten at home. We had just 4 shots, none of them on target and we didn’t even get a corner. Totally outplayed by an excellent team from the first kick to the last. I’m not complaining and I’m not annoyed, I’m just saying it as I saw it. |
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Reply | I wonder how KM feels right now
at 17:40 6 Apr 2025
He’s a better manager for the experience of this season but his stock is probably lower in some ways. Not for any sensible board who can see his quality but I imagine that trying to sell him to say Spurs fans this summer would be tougher than it would have been a year ago. A few bad results at a new club and the fans would be on his back.
I can’t remember exactly what he said but I remember listening to him being interviewed on the pitch after the Huddersfield game at the end of last season and got the impression he was on his way. I think he let his heart rule his head with his decision to stay and if he was completely honest may now view it as a mistake. I hope I’m wrong. I still think he’s a great manager and I want him to be be for a long time yet. [Post edited 6 Apr 17:40]
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Reply | Why are we so crap at home
at 08:49 6 Apr 2025
We’ve not exactly been ripping it up away from home. Fine margins and they’ve just gone for us a couple more times away from home than at Portman Road.
A last minute winner at Wolves, poor finishing by Spurs and arguably our best away performance of the season at Bournemouth are why we have won 3 away games. Leicester, Fulham, Man U and a couple of other home games could very easily have gone our way. The draws at Brighton and Villa were very fortunate. More often than not, based on chances, those games are lost by 2 or 3. The same problems we have at home have been evident away - Brentford and Fulham immediately spring to mind.
VAR has also diminished home advantage. Major decisions are less influenced by crowd reactions and so the atmosphere in the stadium has less bearing on the outcome of the match.
We’ve just not been good enough this season. No shame in it, I’ve got more pride in our club now than for many, many years. The sooner everyone realises that our relegation was not something that could realistically have been avoided, the sooner we can regain the positivity and look forward to next season. |
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Reply | Delap reported 40m clause...
at 08:33 6 Apr 2025
You’re assuming he and his agent would want to be part of that. There’s no way the contract would be able to stipulate that he has to re-sign for them if they demand it. If the clause is £40m and there are multiple bids, some of which exceed it, he’ll choose the offer that suits him best. It may be that there’s a clause that says we have to pay a percentage of any profit to City if he signs elsewhere for more than X amount but unless Delap is a willing party they can’t just buy him to sell him. |
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Reply | Foreign players
at 08:28 6 Apr 2025
There were no complaints about our reliance on English-based, English speaking signings prior to this season. Our scouting and recruitment resources have been focused on the English league for years and this was a factor in why we secured the signings of Broadhead, Chaplin, Burns, Davis, Harry Clarke, Luongo, Tuanzebe, Hladky, Walton, Taylor etc etc.
Plenty of EFL clubs sign a lot of players from all corners of the globe. For every success story there are multiple failures. I doubt we’d have gained back to back promotions if the signings in summer 2023 and January 2024 had needed to adapt to English football, our climate, complex style of play and so on. We can’t have it all ways.
The scouting network shortcomings are a direct consequence of progressing too quickly as we don’t have a full Premier League infrastructure. Having a manager who has spent his entire career in England is another factor.
It’s also worth remembering that during our last spell in the premier league, the departure of British players to be replaced by those from overseas didn’t work well at all. It’s not done much for Leicester or Southampton this season either.
We’ve come up short this season and there are multiple factors. Overall though it’s just that we ‘ve come too far, too soon. We’ve made 10 steps forward compared to where we were in 2021 and are now taking one backwards. I’m sure that our approach in the transfer market will change slightly this summer and there will be an element of overseas recruitment. |
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Reply | Your worst ITFC take
at 10:14 3 Apr 2025
That losing Walton before the first game of 23/24 was a disaster, that Hladky was a league two keeper and so we were going to struggle to stay out of the bottom 3 until Walton was back. After 20 minutes against Sunderland away I was even more convinced of it, he looked out of his depth. |
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Reply | Ipswich 4 Forest Green 0 in Feb 23 to Ipswich 0 Liverpool 0 at half time
at 23:04 28 Mar 2025
I grew up watching the Robson teams so as much as I loved them I think I just assumed it would always be as it was then. The 91/92 promotion season and start of the following season were great and obviously finally winning promotion, nearly making the champions league and playing in Europe in the early 2000s was fantastic . For me though early 2023 until the start of this season has been my most enjoyable ever as a supporter. The atmosphere has ever been consistently good as it was for that year and a half, the late winners, fantastic passing football, so many high scoring games with late drama, the togetherness of the whole club after nearly 20 years on the slide was very special. I’d all but lost faith that we’d ever see success again or the ground full on a regular basis. |
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Thread | Ipswich 4 Forest Green 0 in Feb 23 to Ipswich 0 Liverpool 0 at half time
at 13:48 28 Mar 2025
The best 18 months I’ve experienced as a supporter and that includes being a fan through the Sir Bobby years. I’m not fussed if we go down, I’ll look forward to the championship next season and will support us until the day I die.
February 2023 until August 2024 was a great time with a very special team and a fantastic manager. I never thought I’d ever see our club do what they did and to do it with such style and togetherness made it a privilege to witness and be part of. Incredible memories that will last a lifetime. I get goosebumps when I think about the celebrations after Exeter and Huddersfield.
Does else feel a bit flat knowing that even though we’re in a great place as a club with a lot to look forward to, nothing achieved in the future is likely to feel quite as good as that year and a half did? |
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Reply | Away allocation at PR next season
at 12:44 17 Mar 2025
It’s our choice to put the away fans there. The £30 price cap for away fans is just about the only genuinely positive thing I can think of that the Premier League does for supporters. |
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Thread | Away allocation at PR next season
at 12:30 17 Mar 2025
Anyone know if it’s likely to go back to the 2,000 or so it was before this season? I’ve not been in the Cobbold since the changes so have no idea how easy it would be to re-configure.
If it goes back to close to how it was prior to this season, I hope that the supporters who were moved out of their seats get the chance to go back to the half way line if the away allocation is reduced. Many were dismissive of them last year, with a “who cares?” attitude. I got that there was a lot to do in a short space of time, that there were not any viable alternatives and no matter what was done, changes would not suit everyone but I did feel sorry for those who got turfed out of their old seats. |
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Thread | Broadhead
at 20:17 15 Mar 2025
Why is he so out of favour? He epitomises everything that was good about the 22/23 and 23/24 seasons and is nearly always a significant improvement on whoever he replaces when he finally get a 15 minute run out. |
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Reply | The difference between now and any time in the past
at 09:57 23 Feb 2025
Delap and Omari clearly are. A few others - Leif, Greaves, O’Shea - have maybe done enough for a newly promoted team to make a bid. They’re all a lot better as a result of a season of PL experience.
I’m not saying Philips and Cajuste are good enough as a pairing at this level but they’re better equipped than Morsy, Luongo, Taylor, Humphreys or the players we had last season in central midfield. [Post edited 23 Feb 9:59]
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Reply | The difference between now and any time in the past
at 09:19 23 Feb 2025
Both Burnley fans I know feel the same way . They don’t like the football under Parker either so they’re not even enjoying a successful season (although I’ve not spoken to him since their win yesterday). |
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Reply | Another excellent article from the Guardian re the gulf between the Prem & C
at 08:59 23 Feb 2025
I was surprised but as it was MM talking about a position he played in I found what he had to say quite interesting. He’s always quite diplomatic and is understandably a big fan of Kieran so is reluctant to criticise but I feel he’s held back a lot this season in his post-match analysis. Reading between the lines I think he’s frustrated that so many of the promoted team were discarded so quickly. In the same conversation yesterday he was praising Chaplin and what he could bring to the team. |
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Thread | The difference between now and any time in the past
at 08:53 23 Feb 2025
Is that now it seems near-impossible to build a team in the championship that’s capable of holding their own in the Premier League. The pockets of the established PL clubs are now so deep that they take the players who are good enough from the relegated clubs and the rest of them get bought by the promoted clubs.
There were 3 loanees in our starting 11 yesterday. The player most likely to have made a difference (Enciso) is another one. Despite spending what for us was a huge amount of money on transfers in the summer, to add to a team who got almost 100 points the season before, much of the proven ability/experience we required needed to be borrowed from other clubs.
If we go down ,the 3 or 4 who have proven themselves to be premier league quality will leave in the summer either to become squad players for the established clubs or the big signings of the promoted teams. Even 5 years ago clubs could often hold these players for a season but that just doesn’t seem to happen anymore. Can anyone see Delap or Omari in a Town shirt if we’re back in the Championship next season?
The team we put out yesterday would beat any of the current top 6 in the Championship. Leeds, Sheffield United , Burnley or whoever comes up won’t be able to compete without changing 8 or 9 of their starting 11. As we’ve seen this league is so tough you don’t get time to develop as a team during a premier league season.
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