DE.

Twice in two seasons no less.

Keeping in mind the goal of buying Brereton for £7m would surely have been to develop him and then sell him on for a higher fee, as would have been perfectly sensible, you do have to assume that a sale of Wharton for a hypothetical £20m would go to redressing the loss we ended up making on both Brereton's fee and wages over the course of his contract. Plugging a gap that simply shouldn't have been allowed to appear.

Rotherham's win means they are now safe, ending their multi-year streak of yo-yoing between the Championship and League 1. It means that if Huddersfield are able to get at least a draw from their home match on Thursday against Sheff Utd, Reading will be relegated. If not, then it'll go down to the final day, where Reading Vs Huddersfield will decide who is playing in League 1 next season.

Keeping in mind the context was the likes of Coventry, Millwall and Luton above us, and the teams at the lower end of the league, do you think we're facing a significant disadvantage based on that? Remembering that as far as the academy is concerned, we have a very good one that is highly funded relative to a lot of other clubs. If you do then fair enough, for the record, it's all about opinions... but I don't think there's good reason to say we're way above where we should be in this league. I think if we finish 8th - 10th that's an average position based on what we have available.

Souey was a great manager for us until the final season or so, and even then he left before he could damage his legacy. As far as being a pundit, much like Keane he speaks his mind and isn't afraid to call out stupid comments made by other pundits, which is refreshing. His Liverpool bias can be annoying, but that aside he was worth listening to.

As for the manager...

We're on a winless run of 8, one of if not the worst run of form in the division, and we've gone from 3rd a few months ago to 8th now with an outside chance of getting into 6th - the second season in a row in which we've let a golden opportunity slip. How can one not understand a generally pessimistic outlook with those facts in mind? As far as us being way above where we should be - why? Are there that many teams below us with significantly more budget, better players or a better overall setup than us? Past history would suggest not. We've been upper mid-table for the vast majority of the season two seasons in a row now, so it only makes sense to place us in that bracket in our current state. Are Coventry, Millwall and Luton in a much healthier place than us in terms of budget and players? They aren't using these issues as an excuse not to excel. It's Luton's second season in a row in the top six - 6th last year and likely 3rd this year. We don't need to accept mediocrity, and we shouldn't accept it either. We have a £7m and £5m strikeforce. We were close to signing a PL striker in Undav on loan and prepared to pay O'Briens PL wages in January, before our recruitment team ballsed up the paperwork, so we haven't exactly been shopping in the bargain basement over the years.

We'll also have gone behind and failed to come back from behind to win for a club record 64 games, narrowly beating out 2031's 61 game streak.

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I guess I'll go with the 8 rather than 9 then 🙂 but yeah, the form Ipswich have been in over the past few months has been nothing short of sensational. Some shrewd January signings and a wave of incredible momentum has got them back into the Championship. Both Plymouth and Ipswich have really had to hold their nerve considering how many points Sheffield Wednesday have in 3rd. Two of Ipswich's final four games were against Peterborough (5th at the time) and Barnsley (4th), both away, and they won both matches 3-0. A fully deserved promotion, and both teams will come up to the Championship with a lot of confidence.

Huddersfield play Sheff Utd next and need a draw to be safe. If they lose then it'll come down to Huddersfield Vs Reading on the final day of the season, and could be a relegation decider. Rotherham have much better GD than Reading, so if they can get a draw from one of their final two games against Boro and Wigan it should be enough to keep them up. Certainly still a chance it could go down to the final game.

I remember when I went to watch us play Norwich at Carrow Road, Dolan was playing just behind Gallagher and was a real pest throughout, never gave the Norwich defence a moment's rest and scored a goal as well. As you say, the enthusiasm is there and I think Dolan does have the potential to be very effective in the right role. Central striker isn't it though.

Leeds are certainly doing everything they can to help Leicester and/or Everton stay up.

The january fiasco and comments that followed from JDT made me think there was a high likelihood he would look for other options this summer. Us crashing out of the playoff places, primarily because of our recruitment team's inability to do the basics, only seems to make that more likely. If JDT has been told there's no budget in the summer, and he's got to rely on that same recruitment team to bring in the players he needs from the free/loan market... well, it shouldn't be a surprise to anybody if he isn't here at the start of next season. That's why I can't sit back and calmly comment about this being a transitional season and not a big deal if we don't make the playoffs. Every season matters, and there's zero guarantee we'll be anywhere near as competitive next season for a multitude of reasons.

I don't think Morton was a bad loan signing, but neither has be been particularly impressive. We needed a bigger contribution from a player who was pencilled in for the first eleven in almost every match where he was available. So I'd say a 5 or 6/10 is probably fair.

In 2023 we've played 19 league matches and only scored more than once in three matches, so yes, against a team who concede very few goals a scrappy 1-0 is likely our best hope.

From memory there were quotes in the LT from the club about us shopping in the frees and loan market this summer, whereas last season we at least had some budget for the likes of Hyam and Szmodics, so I'd assume it's related to that.

I think the stats speak for themselves, if Ipswich played Plymouth 10 times they'd realistically win 8 or 9 of those. Individually the best team in L1 without a doubt, but if Plymouth win the title then they'll be the best at gaining points over the course of the season, so you can only say fair play to them. Especially considering their lack of resource when compared to most of the teams in that top six bracket. Their season has been unbelievable really.

Not sure it's necessarily an apt comparison, but it wouldn't surprise me at all if JDT's agent has been putting feelers out there.

McCarthy and Lambert worked under Marcus Evans. Ipswich were taken over by a US Pension Fund in April 2021, Cook had been hired three days beforehand and was considered their pick as manager. He lasted until December 2021 and was then sacked and McKenna hired.

Part of the problem is seeing so many teams on a similar level to us manage to get there. Luton are about to get into the playoffs for the second season in a row. Huddersfield, who are now 21st, were in it last year. I don't believe we are any worse off than the likes of Coventry, Millwall or Sunderland. Coventry were forced to sell us their best defender at the start of the season because of their financial problems! You just get this feeling of... why is it never our turn? Even if we didn't make it, can't we just have one season where we at least have a little bit of hope that we might make it back? Why does it always end up this way, from the days of Bowyer until now? Plenty of dysfunctional clubs have managed it, so what kind of ridiculous curse do we have on us?

Goes without saying that he's pretty much universally loved at this point. They like his demeanour, his approach to games and his signings. Ipswich are going up with a GD of +66 as things stand, and it'll probably be higher after the final game. They've only lost 4 games in the entire season and have conceded the least goals in the division with 33. They're one goal away from 100 goals for the season. You'd have to be an insanely dedicated doom-monger to come up with anything negative really. He's absolutely transformed them during his time there - they obviously have the budget and the infrastructure, but so did Lambert and Cook, and both failed miserably. It'll be very interesting to see how McKenna gets on in the Championship. I wouldn't be surprised at all if Ipswich are similar to Sunderland this season and right up there in the mix come the end of the season.

I don't think you can say it isn't a bad run just because we haven't been performing terribly. Results are ultimately all that matters and it is a bad run, regardless of whether we've been playing well or not. I'm not sure how far down the table you'd have to go to find a team that hasn't won in eight matches. When it was five I believe it was Hull in 15th. You can say it isn't a bad run of performances, sure, but when most people talk about a bad run they're talking about points gained over a period of time. Good performances in spite of that don't give us any extra points.

Our position in the table largely relied on BBD scoring and the team rarely conceding. I think something like 13 of our 19 wins have been clean sheets. Once BBD's form dried up it was basically game over, as it is simply an impossible burden to ask our defence to keep a clean sheet repeatedly for the entire season.

This season seems to be 4 teams far above the standard (Plymouth, Ipswich, Sheff Weds and Barnsley), then a group above average (essentially 4th to 9th) and then the rest. Could argue it's not too dissimilar to the Championship.