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Ronaldo hit with huge fine
at 12:53 29 Feb 2024

£6,300 for making 'a gesture' at Al Shabab supporters. Given that he earns that in about two minutes, I don't think he'll be losing any sleep over it.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/68433101
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Roger Daltrey says ‘my generation’ to blame for NHS crisis
at 13:03 11 Jan 2024

Bit harsh to blame it on one song, I thought it was quite good

https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/music/news/roger-daltrey-nhs-te
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Kieron Dyer - Rhode Island manager?
at 11:34 4 May 2022

Not sure how my train of thought got to this but I think Kieron Dyer would be a great fit to be manager of Brett Johnson's new team in Rhode Island.

In one of his interviews after becoming owner he said "I have to be sensitive to my partners in Ipswich, but I’m keen on seeing if there’s a young coach that oversees the academy that would make sense to move to Rhode Island, have him or her bring five to seven of the best and brightest, and put them into that market because he or she’s been working with them for years now, then surround them with a phenomenal additional cohort of great USL talent and see what that looks like."

Kieron is obviously not at the club now so there's no conflict with taking a coach away from Ipswich. When he left it seemed that one of the reasons was due to having to fit into the culture that was being imposed at the club but this would be a great opportunity to set his own culture at a brand new club. He has a fantastic relationship with the young players at Ipswich and was having success with the U23s so would seem an ideal candidate to develop a group of promising players, and it could be a good development opportunity for some of our youth prospects as well. Kieron needs an opportunity to get into management if that's still a route he's interested in, and this existing link with the owners makes a lot of sense to me as long as he hasn't burnt too many bridges. If it goes well then the next ITFC manager could be lined up...

Rhode Island are due to start in the USL in spring 2023 so hopefully that gives Kieron time to focus on his health until then. What do people reckon? Any prospect of this happening or am I just daydreaming?
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Why do Ipswich make it seem so hard to win football matches?
at 10:06 16 Dec 2021

I feel like as a club we've tried every approach that I can think of to improve things on the pitch but have got progressively worse as long as I've been a town fan. We've had various managers of different types, new players, and even now new owners and a more developed structure behind the scenes. Admittedly that off-field structure might take time to fully develop, performance analytics and sports science and the like, but surely we should have enough about us to outperform Barrow?

I get the divine right thing and anyone can win a football match on a given day. I'm not necessarily say we should have beaten Barrow. But even despite the number of changes, to be outplayed by Barrow in the first half was embarrassing. Just simple things like getting crosses in the box, stringing together a few passes, just didn't seem to be happening.

Is a new manager going to be enough to turn things around?
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Statement of intent from Newcastle?
at 12:52 26 Oct 2021

New owner: I would like us to make a marvelous signing in the January transfer window!
Newcastle: OK

https://www.footballinsider247.com/sources-newcastle-set-sights-on-signing-aston
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Flying solo
at 12:44 8 Oct 2021

Just bought my ticket for the Portsmouth away game. It will be my first game of the season and first ever going on my own! I'm a little nervous to be honest but mainly excited.

Anyone else go to games on their own or is it just me that's a Billy-no-mates? Any tips for solo Town fans?
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Don't worry no one is being relegated this year
at 13:28 6 Aug 2021

Interesting looking through the predictions of some journalists following league one clubs in EADT https://www.eadt.co.uk/sport/ipswich-town/league-one-journalists-predictions-821

No one has predicted their team to win the league or get relegated. 18 teams have a top half predicted finish and 7 in the playoffs with Sunderland and Wycombe the only teams to predict themselves in the automatic places.

What can we learn from this? Not much probably, apart from some general preseason optimism and a lot of teams that think they have a chance this season.
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Gareth Southgate - club manager?
at 11:20 2 Jul 2021

I've been really impressed by Southgate over the past few months and that got me thinking where do people see him managing in the future and how successful could he be as a club manager?

I don't think he's a tactical genius but has clearly identified a system that he thinks will be successful in tournament football and has had the courage in his convictions to select players that fit well into that system, perhaps surprisingly leaving out some of the attacking talent that he has at his disposal. He's a pragmatic manager and I don't think is necessarily fixed on one style of play so could adapt to different tactics if required for league football.

He's built a really positive culture within the England camp, where in the past there has been cliques and rivalries between players from different clubs. He seems to be a good man manager and role model, disciplining players where required but not freezing anyone out. International managers probably get more time to develop this culture as they often have at least a couple of years in the job between tournaments, would he get the same time at a club to develop a squad?

The reputation of a manager at international level is ultimately dependent on results at tournaments, his stock will be a lot higher if he wins something with England. I have a feeling though that the top teams in the Premier League might still overlook him, leaving him potentially looking at the next tier of clubs looking to break into the top (the likes of West Ham, Leicester, Everton). Perhaps he is more suited to being an international manager, would he be interested in managing another country? Something I don't think many English managers have done - Roy Hodgson is the only one I can think of.

Anyway, interested to get others thoughts on this. Hopefully he is successful with England and stays there a long time.
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Last time England beat a top team at a major tournament?
at 12:17 29 Jun 2021

Debatable what counts as a top team but any advances on Argentina 2002?

About time that changed
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The transformative power of the manager
at 12:58 27 Nov 2020

Was just reading an article on the influence that managers have on team performance. I found it interesting because it's something I've been thinking a fair bit about recently. If we had a new manager how much difference could it actually make?

There are two main points that stood out to me in the article that I think can be related to our current situation. The first is a quote attributed to Giovanni Trapattoni that "a good manager can make a team 10 per cent better, a manager can make that same team 30 per cent worse". The other was that a clubs budget will dictate what the base platform is (which is why despite Man Utd's questionable managerial performances they are still one of the top teams).

I'd argue that Towns performance last season was our base level. With the players in our squad we'd struggle to be much lower in league 1 honestly (without too much disrespect to the rest of the league). That means that there is significant room for improvement, obviously. I can't think of a player who Lambert has improved, Downes maybe but I'd put this down to natural development rather than anything Lambert has coached. I'm no tactical expert but I don't think playing 4-3-3 and trying to keep the ball is anything groundbreaking so a manager with new ideas could get the best out of this squad. My concern is that there isn't a quick fix to turn the teams fortunes around this season.

Link to full article here: https://www.independent.co.uk/sport/football/premier-league/chelsea/tottenham-la
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I was bored
at 12:37 18 Jan 2017

Douglas has been getting a lot of criticism for a while, some justified and I thought some heading into scapegoat territory where he was being blamed for the teams poor performances. I was bored today and decided to look at results when Douglas has started the game and when he hasn't.

With Douglas:
P-18 W-3 D-6 L-9
Points - 15
Points per game - 0.83

Without Douglas
P-11 W-6 D-2 L-3
Points - 20
Points per game - 1.82

This includes cup games so using 'points' might not quite make sense but there's a clear difference there. I don't want to be totally one-sided so it could be argued that Douglas has played more in games that we've lined up defensively in... make of it what you will.
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