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Thread | Player of the season rankings 2024/25
at 19:13 29 Apr 2025
Maybe it would be better to have this at the end of the season, but with relegation confirmed, and the player of the season vote open, who did you vote for? And how would you rank the rest of the team this year?
Here are my rankings for the 2024/25 season. Although they are mainly ranked based on performance this season, I have factored in expectations and whether they were worth the money as well. A player who was signed to be a backup and does nothing has had a much better season than a record signing who does nothing.
1. Dara O’Shea. The most consistent performer all season and the only player who I could never justify saying should be dropped from the starting eleven despite Woolfenden always performing flawlessly when in his place. Many crucial goal line clearances, never seemed to lose his man, and was also clearly the best right-back when Tuanzebe was injured, despite being out of position.
2. Liam Delap. Very clearly our most talented player with a bright future, and the defining player of the season. His performance in the home game against Chelsea was the best I have ever seen from an Ipswich player, with the Aston Villa home game not far behind, and his second goal there being the best of the season. But was sometimes too selfish and didn’t bring other attackers into play as well as Hirst did.
3. Axel Tuanzebe. In a role that caused most players to be frequently caught out, Tuanzebe was a class above any other right-backs in the squad, never being caught out of position or losing his man and always able to get back in time to shut out some top left-wingers. His limitations going forward were irrelevant to a team battling relegation.
4. Cameron Burgess. Typically solid, unbeatable in the air, distributed to Davis well and rarely made mistakes. He should have been the preferred left centre-back over Greaves all season. The transformation from the player signed from Accrington four years ago is remarkable.
5. Jens Cajuste. The best midfielder in the team with some beautiful runs, ghosting past players, such as setting up the first goal against Chelsea, and the nice turn to score against Forest. But those runs rarely led to goals, and he didn’t offer as much defensive cover for Davis as Luongo had last season.
6. Omari Hutchinson. Of all the lightweight attacking midfielders who had a tough time beating their man through skill now they are up against the best defenders in the world, Hutchinson had the most success, and clearly still has bags of potential. I think McKenna rates him too highly to sell him this summer.
7. Sam Morsy. Some say he looked too slow for the Premier League, and at times that was evident such as against Newcastle, but Ipswich’s results were so dismal when Morsy didn’t play that I suspect his passion and role as captain has a significant effect on the performance of the team and keeping that team spirit that was so crucial to the double promotion.
8. Wes Burns. Looked lacking in confidence at the start of the season but really grew into it, and it is clear that Burns is far more important to this team than it would sometimes appear, and his injury was a huge blow to the team. The Burns role in this lineup is quite unique and nobody else can play it nearly as effectively, which is remarkable considering he cost 50k and played at League One level for most of his career.
9. Alex Palmer. I do wonder if the fact that Ipswich’s form was generally worse with Palmer has something to do with his unwillingness to play out from the back compared to Muric and Walton, but I have ranked him quite highly because he made some extraordinary saves, with the away games at Aston Villa and Chelsea among the best goalkeeping performances I can remember at Ipswich.
10. Luke Woolfenden. He was unlucky that the new signing in his position turned out to be such a huge success as to keep him out of the team most of the season, but Woolfenden never let Ipswich down when he did play, and was as calm and collected as ever.
11. George Hirst. Like Woolfenden, very unlucky not to get more games due to the imperious goal-scoring form of Delap, but while less talented, Hirst is a more complete striker and far better at linking with the other attackers, most notably shown by the first goal away to Chelsea.
12. Nathan Broadhead. Probably deserved more game time than he got, as while he was somewhat inconsistent, Broadhead would be dropped after one bad game where Clarke got many chances. He appeared to the eye to be the best left number ten, and Ipswich’s record was much stronger in games when he started.
13. Leif Davis. The best player in last season’s promotion along with Morsy, but Davis struggled to make the step up to the Premier League defensively and Ipswich often conceded when he was too high up the pitch or not marking his man. He was also less effective going forward, but got a brilliant goal against Leicester and a fantastic assist at Brentford. In the championship, the team seemed almost built around him, and was better for it.
14. Sammie Szmodics. Four goals, the most in the squad other than Delap, and none better than the overhead kick against Tottenham. But despite his excellent work-rate, I thought Szmodics sometimes seemed a bit invisible in games and was less effective on the left than Broadhead.
15. Conor Chaplin. He may not really have had enough games to make a significant impression, but when Chaplin was unavailable, Ipswich lost two key advantages they had in the championship. The link up play between the front players, with his ability to spot a pass second to none, and the sheer passion and emotion that was evident from the tears in his eyes when he scored against Bournemouth.
16. Julio Enciso. Possibly the most skilful player in the squad and definitely among the most talented, meaning he was crucial to some good results like the Bournemouth win. But Enciso’s reluctance to pass the ball was frustrating and so I don’t think he improved the team.
17. Conor Townsend. A very dependable understudy to Davis, more solid defensively and strong going forward, a highlight being the assist at Bournemouth, but with less capability to do something special.
18. Ben Johnson. Could have been much lower having come in with vast Premier League experience and looking lost at right-back, but when Burns and Ogbene were unavailable, he was the only one who could really play the right-wing position, and while he was inconsistent and less effective going forward than them, that made him crucial to the team.
19. Jacob Greaves. Never quite lived up to that spectacular debut against Liverpool, and was probably lucky to get so many games as he really didn’t look like an upgrade on Burgess and made far more mistakes.
20. Christian Walton. Unlucky not to start more often in the first half of the season and was brilliant in the win against Chelsea, but his form dipped in his final three games and never got back into the team once Palmer had joined.
21. Chiedozie Ogbene. His season-ending injury came too early to make much of an impact, but we saw enough to know that Ipswich have found a second Wes Burns, and would have scored a lot more points had he been fit.
22. Jack Taylor. More substitute appearances than any other player, but I don’t think that was quite justified by his performances, often seeming invisible when in the number ten role. I think McKenna was always hoping he might recreate the Swansea and Wolves goals from last season, but it never happened.
23. Massimo Luongo. It was great that he got to start the opening two games against the very best of opposition, but once Phillips and Cajuste came in, Luongo never really featured again in the league. I would have played him a bit more.
24. Harry Clarke. Struggled to make the step up to the Premier League and his weakness of being caught out of position was exposed a few times, albeit not as obviously as Godfrey and we probably would have been better off keeping him as an option in the second half of the season.
25. Jack Clarke. A lot of potential for the future as he is clearly a top championship player and demonstrated it against Coventry, but could never seem to get any joy against Premier League defenders, too often losing the ball and never looked worth the 15 million paid for him. Ipswich always seemed to lose games when he started.
26. Ali Al-Hamadi. Didn’t prove to be an effective Premier League striker, and the fact Szmodics was preferred in the absence of Delap and Hirst was damning but, in fairness, probably a mistake.
27. Aro Muric. The scapegoat of the season, Muric was better than he was given credit for but did make far too many errors, was lambasted by fans, and eventually his confidence was shot. McKenna probably kept him in the team for too long which meant the eventual dropping was bigger than it should have been, and meant there was no way back.
28. Jaden Philogene. So far, our record transfer fee signing has looked like a dreadful mistake with Philogene struggling to link up with other attackers and never seeming able to beat his man, with zero points scored in the five games he started. But like Clarke, he has far more pedigree as a top championship player so could very well come good next year.
29. Kalvin Phillips. This season was a disaster, with the huge wages he was on making this a costly signing for Ipswich, but being a loan, he can’t have any future benefit to Ipswich like Clarke and Philogene probably will. Phillips never got a run of games in the side, but in the matches where he did start, Ipswich never won.
30. Ben Godfrey. Just two games in which he was totally torn apart by Jeremy Doku and then Heung-Min Son, then didn’t get back into the team until the recent injuries have got him back on the bench. |
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Thread | Full match replays
at 19:26 23 Apr 2025
On TownTV they have full match replays from all the games of the 2024/25 season and most of them from 2023/24.
Is there anywhere to watch replays of games from before 2023/24, and the ones that are missing from last season (these are the ones on Sky I think)? |
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Thread | Top performance from Morsy I thought.
at 19:11 20 Apr 2025
Hirst was also very good except for the third goal. Tuanzebe as well.
A strangely strong all-round performance for an absolute drubbing at home. |
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Thread | Swindon Town vs Accrington Stanley.
at 22:24 22 Mar 2025
I went to this game today; it was a drab 0-0 draw. Swindon tried to play good football but had very little quality. Accrington were as disgusting to watch as always, with their players spending more time on the ground than the ball did. The ref had a shocker as well.
Absolutely crazy to think that we lost against both of these teams just a few years ago. Today we could have put nine or ten past either of them. |
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Thread | The greatest team in League One history.
at 12:00 17 Mar 2025
Not much point to this post other than to brag about how great Ipswich Town are.
Back at the time of that great 3-0 away win against them in April 2023, the Barnsley manager Michael Duff called us 'the greatest team in league one history'.
Obviously this annoyed Plymouth Argyle fans because they had beaten us in the league, and that's fair. However, if we look at the team as specifically the one we had at the end of the season, when we went on a run of 13 wins in 14 games, rather than across the season as a whole, because Broadhead, Luongo, Hirst and Clarke were only signed in January, Duff has a good point.
The team that played against Exeter was our main team in that run:
Christian Walton
Harry Clarke
Luke Woolfenden
Cameron Burgess
Leif Davis
Sam Morsy
Massimo Luongo
Wes Burns
Conor Chaplin
Nathan Broadhead
George Hirst.
That team played together as the starting 11 in that exact combination seven times (Bolton, Shrewsbury, Wycombe, Charlton, Peterborough, Barnsley, Exeter), and won all seven games, (I think this is one short of the football record), by an aggregate of 26-0, probably a record. They were also the main players across our 13 wins in 14 games at the end of that season but it's inevitable that one player was often missing so it was only the full 11 in seven games.
Across the championship season last year, those ten outfield players were the ten outfield players with the most starts over the whole season in our squad, with the only change being Vaclav Hladky replacing Walton, and Hladky was, of course, also in the squad before. And that team won another promotion thanks to 96 points in the championship. That first eleven were the main players particularly at the start of the season, and there was a run between the end of the league one season and the start of the championship season, between the draws at Bristol Rovers away and Birmingham City away, where Ipswich Town won 24 games out of 28.
So that league one team effectively proved to be one of the best in the championship. The likes of Freddie Ladapo, Marcus Harness, George Edmundson, Janoi Donacien and Kayden Jackson who were the main subs at the end of the league one season also played a big role in the championship promotion.
Two years later, all 11 have featured as part of a Premier League victory (Morsy, Davis, Burgess, Hirst, Luongo vs Tottenham), (Morsy, Davis, Burgess, Burns, Chaplin, Clarke vs Wolves), (Morsy, Davis, Burns, Broadhead, Woolfenden, Walton vs Chelsea), albeit with Hirst and Luongo only as a sub.
I think that eight of those eleven have looked totally at home as lower Premier League players, with maybe only Walton, Clarke and Luongo appearing slightly shaky and that feels harsh on Walton. If they had been somehow magically free of injury, I would guess that we would have scored more points in the Premier League had nine of those eleven players started every game, and Clarke and Luongo had come on as first subs each time. The players have improved massively since the league one days, but far more because of the coaching from McKenna than natural improvement with age, with only Davis, Clarke, Woolfenden and Hirst aged 21-23 at the time.
So it was a full team of potential Premier League players in League One. In the modern era, that has to be very special. I doubt if it is the greatest in history, as I checked the 1956/57 squad (third division), and it included Roy Bailey, Larry Carberry, Jimmy Leadbitter, John Elsworthy and Ted Phillips who were all champions of England five years later, but that was a different time. Since it was called League One in 2004, surely it's the greatest. |
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Thread | Mathematical Model to compare Ipswich players.
at 19:37 12 Mar 2025
This was the previous, simple version: Statistical impact of Ipswich players this season. by TractorFrog 25 Feb 10:04Based on the Axel Tuanzebe thread , here are those stats for every player who has started a game this year. I have calculated PPG in games they started, PPG in games they didn't start (sub appearances count here), then done the first number minus the second. So if the score is greater than 0, we get more points with them, and for a score less than 0, we get more points without them. Note that this exercise is most useful for players who have done about half the games, as if they have only played 1 or 2 games then it can be heavily influenced by a freak result, and the same if they have only missed 1 or 2 games. So here are the results
EDIT: (in brackets is the number of games played out of 26, or the number of games missed: whichever is fewer. To demonstrate that the higher the number, the more useful the data is. So the maximum number here is 13):
1. Liam Delap +0.708 (2)
2. Sam Morsy +0.562 (5)
3. Jens Cajuste +0.413 (10)
4. Nathan Broadhead +0.409 (4)
5. Dara O'Shea +0.362 (3)
6. Conor Townsend +0.360 (1)
7. Cameron Burgess +0.238 (10)
8. Wes Burns +0.179 (12)
9. Axel Tuanzebe +0.179 (12)
10. Omari Hutchinson +0.167 (2)
11. Harry Clarke +0.114 (4)
12. Sammie Szmodics +0.077 (13)
13. Aro Muric +0.042 (8)
14. Ben Johnson +0.020 (9)
15. Christian Walton +0.017 (6)
16. Cheo Ogbene +0.014 (3)
17. Luke Woolfenden -0.042 (8)
18. Conor Chaplin -0.113 (7)
19. Julio Enciso -0.167 (2)
20. Alex Palmer -0.167 (2)
21. Jacob Greaves -0.238 (10)
22. Leif Davis -0.360 (1)
23. Kalvin Phillips -0.440 (12)
24. Jack Clarke -0.633 (6)
25. George Hirst -0.680 (1)
26. Jack Taylor -0.680 (1)
27. Massimo Luongo -0.708 (2)
28. Jaden Philogene -0.708 (2)
29. Ben Godfrey -0.708 (2)
I would say these numbers make the best reading for Sam Morsy, Jens Cajuste and Cameron Burgess, and are not so good for Kalvin Phillips, Jacob Greaves and Jack Clarke.
I have now created a more comprehensive mathematical model for comparing the impact of the Ipswich Town players this season.
The improvements to this model on the last one is that it now takes into account the strength of the opposition, whether it is a home or away game, and adjusts for the higher uncertainty in results when the player has only started one or two games, or only missed one or two games. I haven't yet thought of a good way to include the effect of substitutes but that could maybe come later.
If you want to read about how it works and the process, as well as some of the caveats and what the numbers below represent, there is a link here: https://f1frogblog.wordpress.com/2025/03/12/ipswich-town-fc-mathematical-model/
And the final results are as follows:
1. Sam Morsy (1.295)
2. Nathan Broadhead (1.005)
3. Christian Walton (0.917)
4. Liam Delap (0.866)
5. Omari Hutchinson (0.836)
6. Wes Burns (0.784)
7. Cameron Burgess (0.719)
8. Jens Cajuste (0.634)
9. Axel Tuanzebe (0.389)
10. Conor Townsend (0.368)
11. Sammie Szmodics (0.311)
12. Harry Clarke (0.209)
13. Luke Woolfenden (0.207)
14. Chiedozie Ogbene (0.182)
15. Dara O'Shea (0.164)
16. Ben Johnson (0.131)
17. Aro Muric (0.091)
18. Conor Chaplin (-0.015)
19. Leif Davis (-0.368)
20. Jack Taylor (-0.489)
21. Massimo Luongo (-0.604)
22. Jacob Greaves (-0.719)
23. Ben Godfrey (-0.724)
24. Julio Enciso (-0.784)
25. George Hirst (-0.835)
26. Alex Palmer (-1.058)
27. Kalvin Phillips (-1.168)
28. Jaden Philogene (-1.527)
29. Jack Clarke (-1.892) |
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Thread | Try Luongo at Crystal Palace?
at 00:44 6 Mar 2025
With a lot of talk of how Ipswich are struggling at the moment and it might be worth trying something different, I would like to suggest that it could be worth trying Massimo Luongo from the start again in the Premier League.
The chant from the Ipswich fans is 'he's here, he's there, he's every f**king where', and this is basically why I think he is worth a go. When Luongo plays, you can never forget he is on the pitch because he is constantly hassling people on the ball and covering a lot of ground, and this was very evident at Nottingham Forest, albeit with a few mistakes in there as well, but he has hardly played this season.
McKenna likes to bring on Jack Taylor whenever we are chasing a game, I think in the hope that he will recreate those two thunderbolts against Wolves and Swansea last year, but when he isn't doing something amazing like that, he can often be a bit anonymous in games. Jens Cajuste looks an extremely talented player with the way he can turn his man and then fly down the pitch, often beating another player or two in the process. You would think he would be a huge asset from an attacking perspective, but the first goal against Chelsea is the only one I can think of where that skill was particularly crucial to the goal. So I think it is worth trying something different.
Kalvin Phillips is quite a similar player to Luongo in that he is always hassling the ball and covering a lot of ground, but the stats would suggest we don't get many points when Phillips starts, maybe because it feels like he often gives away fouls when tracking back around the penalty area in a way that Luongo didn't last year. Probably because of the higher standard of opposition, but 37/46 games in a championship side that finished second is enough to be worth checking.
Luongo has only started two Premier League games this season, both losses, but they were against Liverpool and Man City and were much better overall performances than the reverse fixtures.
Defensively is where I think Luongo would be most useful to this team. Last season I often listened to games on TownTV and it felt like a regular occurrence that Glenn Wheeler's voice would get more high-pitched as the opposition were attacking, then would relax and say 'brilliant challenge from Luongo'. That's been missing a bit this season without him.
Related to this, one problem for the team this season compared to last is that Leif Davis has been considerably less effective. Last season, he would bomb down the wing and provide all sorts of assists, but rarely seemed to be caught out at the other end as a result. This season, he continues to bomb down the wing but is providing less attacking threat from it, and then quite often is caught out of position and the opposition can score on the counter.
The relative lack of attacking threat is partly down to stronger opposition giving Davis less time and space on the ball, and partly because the rest of the team use him less, with the likes of Burgess, Woolfenden, Chaplin, Broadhead and Hirst more likely to pass to Davis than their replacements. But I think getting caught out defensively could be related to the fact that last season, when Davis went forward, Luongo would drop into the left-back position and give him more attacking freedom, in a way that Cajuste doesn't. Some of the goals this season where Davis was blamed for not sticking with his man, most recently the Brennan Johnson goals for Spurs, could perhaps have been prevented if Luongo had been there as an extra option defensively to mark him.
I think this could be a way of sorting out the defensive problem at left-back, rather than playing Townsend who doesn't provide the same attacking threat as Davis. Having Luongo play a similar role to last season could also make Davis a bit more effective in attack as he would have more freedom and would leave the team less open when he went forward, which could have a greater hand in scoring more goals than what would be lost by not having Cajuste's runs. I would also play Burgess and Broadhead if possible to restore some familiarity to the left-hand-side that was so crucial to our success last season. It might not work, but after five defeats in six, I think it would be worth a try.
So my team for Palace would be:
Palmer
O'Shea Woolfenden Burgess
Johnson Morsy Luongo Davis
Philogene Broadhead
Hirst
This is assuming Hutchinson and Tuanzebe are not available, otherwise they would replace Philogene and Woolfenden.
I feel I should also justify starting Hirst instead of Delap. I think Liam Delap, while he is clearly our most talented player, is effective in a bit of a one-man-band way, in that when he gets the ball he can single-handedly take it down the pitch and have a very good shot, fashioning a chance from nothing, but he doesn't pass the ball much. George Hirst links with the other attackers better, and is more of a player for the Ipswich system. I think that sort of striker is the way to go at the start of the game, and then Delap is who you want at the end when it all gets a bit more desperate, but I would generally want to bring him on a bit earlier than has been the norm for substitutes this season, although it depends on the circumstances of the game. Again, it might not work but after five defeats in six, it is worth a try.
I also think that it's been a theme this season that having more players from the promotion squad tends to lead to a bit more passion and desire in the team, which can sometimes count for more than the extra talent of the new signings. |
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Thread | Statistical impact of Ipswich players this season.
at 10:04 25 Feb 2025
Based on the Axel Tuanzebe thread , here are those stats for every player who has started a game this year. I have calculated PPG in games they started, PPG in games they didn't start (sub appearances count here), then done the first number minus the second. So if the score is greater than 0, we get more points with them, and for a score less than 0, we get more points without them. Note that this exercise is most useful for players who have done about half the games, as if they have only played 1 or 2 games then it can be heavily influenced by a freak result, and the same if they have only missed 1 or 2 games. So here are the results
EDIT: (in brackets is the number of games played out of 26, or the number of games missed: whichever is fewer. To demonstrate that the higher the number, the more useful the data is. So the maximum number here is 13):
1. Liam Delap +0.708 (2)
2. Sam Morsy +0.562 (5)
3. Jens Cajuste +0.413 (10)
4. Nathan Broadhead +0.409 (4)
5. Dara O'Shea +0.362 (3)
6. Conor Townsend +0.360 (1)
7. Cameron Burgess +0.238 (10)
8. Wes Burns +0.179 (12)
9. Axel Tuanzebe +0.179 (12)
10. Omari Hutchinson +0.167 (2)
11. Harry Clarke +0.114 (4)
12. Sammie Szmodics +0.077 (13)
13. Aro Muric +0.042 (8)
14. Ben Johnson +0.020 (9)
15. Christian Walton +0.017 (6)
16. Cheo Ogbene +0.014 (3)
17. Luke Woolfenden -0.042 (8)
18. Conor Chaplin -0.113 (7)
19. Julio Enciso -0.167 (2)
20. Alex Palmer -0.167 (2)
21. Jacob Greaves -0.238 (10)
22. Leif Davis -0.360 (1)
23. Kalvin Phillips -0.440 (12)
24. Jack Clarke -0.633 (6)
25. George Hirst -0.680 (1)
26. Jack Taylor -0.680 (1)
27. Massimo Luongo -0.708 (2)
28. Jaden Philogene -0.708 (2)
29. Ben Godfrey -0.708 (2)
I would say these numbers make the best reading for Sam Morsy, Jens Cajuste and Cameron Burgess, and are not so good for Kalvin Phillips, Jacob Greaves and Jack Clarke. [Post edited 25 Feb 11:05]
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Thread | Missing Wes Burns
at 08:26 24 Feb 2025
Seems strange as he didn’t look Premier League standard at the start of the season, and lacking confidence, but since around December he found his feet in this league and now I think the absence of Wes Burns is really costing us. When Johnson plays the RWB role, he offers good defensive support but not much going forward, while Hutchinson and Philogene play it more like the LW role on the other side, okay for the end of the game if we are chasing a result, but not enough defensive support for the Premier League from the start, so both are playing a bit out of position although they would be fine in that role in the championship. Burns I think can defend as well as Johnson, but then he is also excellent on the counter attack and can whip in a ball to win a corner at least, but more recently finding its way into the box more regularly. There’s nobody else in the team who can really play that role without being ‘out of position’ (apart from probably Ogbene who we haven’t seen much of but he has been out even longer).
I think Burns is more important to this Ipswich side than it would sometimes appear, probably even at the start of the season. |
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Thread | Family and friends tickets
at 10:05 3 Feb 2025
I am trying to buy tickets for Coventry away, it says I can only buy one. How do I make it so I can add family members and get three? |
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Thread | Strong play from Morsy, spots the ball the fans wanted him to play
at 23:46 31 Jan 2025
to Leif Davis, wide left. Now inside the area, this is Town's chance. He goes square, argh, Sarmiento stumbles, now pokes, AND SCORES! OH MY GOODNESS ME! IT'S JEREMY SARMIENTO! With one of the biggest goals of Ipswich Town's season; one of the biggest goals for years, potentially! There's a substitute run the width of the field, I think it's Chaplin. There's a huddle of bodies on the far side! Potentially the last kick of the game, and Ipswich Town have won it! They go back to the top of the championship table! What a team this is! |
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Thread | The sad gulf in quality between the leagues
at 13:59 20 Jan 2025
If you rank the 2023/2024 Ipswich Town squad in order of how many championship games they started that year, the top 11 goes:
Hladky, Davis, Chaplin, Morsy, Woolfenden, Burgess, Luongo, Burns, Broadhead, Clarke, Hirst.
10/11 of those started in the league one promotion game against Exeter in 2022/2023. The other being Hladky who was on the bench.
Effectively, the same team that got promoted from league one with 98 points got promoted from the championship with 96 points. That shows a very small difference between those leagues.
Of course, I am cheating a lot with those stats. The lineup against Exeter wasn't the one that had the most starts across 2022/2023; that would have Donacien, Ladapo, Harness and Evans filling places 8-11 with the four January signings just behind. The Exeter team was undoubtably our best 11 of that season. They played seven times in that exact combination and won all seven, just one short of the record, I believe, and they are the only 11 players still in the squad now. Had we had that team all season, we would have won the league with well above 100 points, perhaps above 120. They were by far the best team in the league, no matter what the Plymouth fans say.
Also, the team improved significantly during the time even though it was the same players, and new signings like Hutchinson, Tuanzebe and Moore also made a huge impact and being far better alternate options than their predecessors. Note that approximately one year after drawing 2-2 against Sheffield Wednesday at Portman Road while battling them for promotion, Ipswich beat Wednesday 6-0, now at opposite ends of the championship table.
But the best form of that season came at the start when it was still the league one team playing. And the four January signings of that league one season ranked 7,9,10,11 in terms of games started in the championship. The crux of the team; the outfield players who made the most starts in both seasons, were Woolfenden, Burgess, Davis, Morsy, Chaplin, Burns. These players were rewarded for playing almost every game in a league one promotion season, by playing almost every game in the championship, and were able to compete, as it should be. In this case, they got another promotion, which is very unusual and I wouldn't expect to be the norm as this Ipswich team was a very special one, but a position in the top half was expected even before the season.
This is a long-winded and waffly way of saying that nearly the same team that scored 98 points in league one was then able to score 96 points in the championship, with all the caveats mentioned above to show why it's not quite that simple, but still that is demonstrating not a huge difference between those leagues. The teams that get promoted from league one to the championship can very much compete without a whole host of signings. It was nice to still be able to support the same players who got us to the championship for another season.
However, the gulf in quality between the Championship and the Premier League is so huge that the same can't be said this year. The 11 players with the most starts so far this season includes just three of those mentioned above (Morsy, Davis, Burns), as well as Hutchinson of course who was number 12 last season. We have spent 120 million on effectively a whole new starting 11, and yet are still in the relegation zone. It is nice that all the 11 players from the Exeter game have played in a few matches this year, but generally they are almost all second-choice in each of their positions now, and the first choice players are new. Maybe this causes the fans to get more annoyed because the players who are losing games are ones who don't have the same credit in the bank as the ones who got us here, yet the new signings are mostly upgrades.
So the teams that finish top of the Championship are a long way from the level required in the Premier League, which is a real shame because it means most players in a championship promotion squad are not entirely fighting for their own position in the Premier League. I know that this Ipswich team is a bit of an unusual example because they were punching above their weight, and it was more than the sum of its parts in the championship. But even so, it doesn't seem right.
In short, the gulf in quality between the Championship and the Premier League is so great that our second-string 11 is good enough to finish second in the championship on 96 points, but our first 11 which cost £120 million is perhaps not quite good enough to escape relegation from the Premier League. That is crazy, and I think a bit of a sad indictment on English football. |
| Forum
Thread | Players remembered for just one moment
at 23:43 9 Aug 2024
I was thinking that if Jeremy Sarmiento doesn’t play for us again, despite a lot of good contributions for us across the season, whenever anyone mentions his name in the future, every Ipswich fan will just think of that goal against Southampton.
Which other players are remembered just for one moment? Richard Chaplow comes to mind with the goal against Watford in 2015. |
| Forum
Thread | I just woke up from a nightmare.
at 05:29 4 May 2024
Huddersfield went 3-0 up in the first half, Leif Davis pulled one back but it wasn’t enough and we lost 3-1. Leeds beat Southampton and I punched a hole in a cupboard and screamed, and then suddenly woke up. Thank goodness :) |
| Forum
Thread | Current favourite for player of the season
at 13:03 20 Feb 2024
It seems strange that, in our best season for 20 years, there is not an obvious favourite for the player of the season, but there are many great options. I guess that is just a Kieran McKenna team for you.
Who would you currently pick? Personally, I would be tempted by Nathan Broadhead although that may be a bit of recency bias. I think Massimo Luongo has been our most consistently brilliant performer. Last years clear top three, Morsy, Chaplin and Davis, are definitely in the conversation, as is Vaclav Hladky who has had a surprisingly extraordinary season. It is very hard to pick. |
| | TractorFrog
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