It's also Bolton going bust, dropping to the 4th division, administration, new owners, and coming back up 2 divisions to the same level as Venky Rovers and being in better financial and fanbase health. Similar with Derby. I feel jealous.

Which is precisely the attitude Waggott and the rest of them down there will be crossing their fingers for. Forget about the past, it's gone, nothing we can do about it, forget JDT, forget January, forget the £25 million raked in. Just get behind the lads FFS! Hand over your £400 quickly before you discover there's no money in the transfer window and we will keep playing the same old never ending rebuild (created by our own negligence and decision making). Well some might forgive and forget but I and others won't be. Reshaping starts at ownership and board level. Anything less isn't enough.

Of course. I'm not going to persuade you otherwise, you can keep repeating this it won't change my mind.

Who was paying JDT's wages when he said that? See above. They were signed with the crumbs that fell off the table once they'd offloaded Travis and Wharton and realised they were catapulting us towards relegation. Ayari, like Moran, a kid costing very little and Brighton quite happy to have him here playing games. See Khadra and Van Hecke. A youngster on loan is not evidence of financial health, quite the opposite.

Agreed. It was panic time when they'd grabbed the cash and left us woefully short. So it was speed dial to whoever was available. Fleck was getting no game time at Sheffield and was told his time was up. He had the chance to come here, play a few games and see how it went with his injury. I suspect Sheffield paid up all or most of his remaining deal with them and we paid a small portion of it or even a pay as you play arrangement. They were happy to oblige, got him fixed up elsewhere and off their books earlier than expected.

If you say so. Do you deliberately just ignore everything else that has gone on at the club over the last 3 years when you delude yourself that we are a normal functioning organisation or does it happen subconsciously? Your account, stated as fact, is possible. My account is just as possible. My account suggests he was rapidly offloaded because of financial concerns, the owners and spivs they employ quite happy to save on the wages for half a season. Your account suggests that we make our transfer decisions based on what is best for the manager / team. I'd suggest we don't, one look at our overall transfer business is evidence of that.

Insane isn't it?

The predicted re-writing of history continues apace. Now at the stage where 12 months after being disappointed at missing out on the play-offs on GD and collecting 69 points we are now hoping to 'celebrate' limping to survival on 50-51 points. He claims we'd had a lot of defeats in a row prior to his arrival which simply isn't true. The game before he took over was Stoke, which we won, in the 6 games prior to that we'd drawn v Rotherham and Huddersfield, won in the 2 cup games and lost at West Brom and at home to QPR. So not a run of defeats. A mixed bag but admittedly against quite poor opposition. Whatever happens on Saturday they'll play the game - forget about what happened, new era, Eustace has done well, lessons to be learned, can't affect what came before, rebuild is on. It's a con.

Love or hate Travis simple fact is that this club was simply not in a position to be loaning him or anyone else of first team level out, especially not in the first week of January. We haven't got enough options or depth to consider doing it. We knew that we had issues with funding from India. So the suggestion that we were getting him out for footballing reasons and that we were expecting to replace him just doesn't add up. Deep down beneath the BS is a simple financial calculation. Out he goes for 6 months and that's a saving of £100k or so. They thought it was easy and that they'd get away with it because we'd limp our way to safety and ultimately it would do us no harm. They might yet be right on that, but it's one hell of a gamble to play with our league status. But when the owners don't care about league status it is easy. Act now, tick the boxes and worry about the consequences later.

He joined a team top of the league in January and looking for reinforcements and cover to their team. I doubt the intention was for him to play every week, they wanted cover, especially whilst Morsy went off to AFCON. Again, a side at the top of the league wanted proven capable depth to see them through the fixtures and get over the line, and happy to call upon him when needed. I wish we'd have signed players of that ilk in January 2022 and January 2023, but instead we did nothing and paid the price.

Of course, because my 'doom laden' predictions have never come to fruition and have been entirely misplaced to date....

Travis will have about 10 clubs all interested in him provided the price is right. And it will be from Rovers who will be happy to offload anyone and everyone provided some cash comes in and the wage bill goes down. Ipswich and a manager many lauding saw qualities there that are valuable at this level. It's not all about picking a pass or banging goals in. It's about having people available who can play 95 minutes 3x a week, know the league, committed to the cause. Wouldn't be surprised at all to see us flog him for £1 million to Millwall, Birmingham, Stoke etc. They'll then use that to 'fund' a few naff incomings. Of course like with Sammie we are talking about selling a couple of proven Championship players who have shown great commitment to the club before we entertain making any much needed signings. We really are the pits.

That's coming whether we stay up or go down They'll try to 'box off' this season by blaming the boogeyman - in this case either JDT, Broughton or the Indian authorities - and then the aim will be to extract season ticket money from people by claiming lessons have been learned, changes have been made, problems resolved. All will be false, there will be no serious change and cannot be without ownership change, but they need something to try and stave off a catastrophic drop in sales, and they won't be cutting prices to do it.

When the CEO is tasked / paid / bonused on getting costs (wages) down every year we ain't going to be in that sort of market. I fully agree that after the last 2 seasons what we definitely need is some proven experience in key positions. But that costs money and I suspect we will be offering less than a few League One clubs on the wages front. Makes it all the more baffling why we continue to incur losses north of £15 million with such a small and inexperienced squad of players.

Like with many others Ipswich's change in fortunes started with a change in ownership. Everything else has flowed directly from that - new investment, personnel changes, engaged fanbase, good young manager, squad development. Without a change in ownership they'd probably still be stuck in League One and getting gates of 15,000. Until or unless we get a change in ownership we will never get close to doing what they have done. Nothing to do with geography, history, 'small town' stuff. Just fresh ideas and investment and people running the show who know what they are doing. Still so many cannot understand or accept this and persist with the delusion that we need to stick with Venkys or that they will suddenly learn and change.

The other way of looking at it is you have the likes of Waggott, Shadow Man, occasionally other staff members when granted an audience, telling them how wonderful they are, how we are ever so grateful for their support, about how the club would cease to exist without their benevolence, about how without them we are a poor small impoverished club. They might listen to that sort of stuff and genuinely believe that they are doing us a favour. I imagine sitting across a table from paid employees, especially those who talk a good game, might convince the fools that we want/need/like them. Of course if they had any interest in what was going on they'd realise that this isn't the case But you get snippets of it from comments made by the likes of Waggott and Mowbray. How they are wonderful kind people, about how we should be ever so thankful for their input. The local media help contribute to this as well, not to mention a large portion of the fanbase. It may be totally irrelevant but if they are pig headed and listen to sycophants it might explain it.

Bad news in my view if they are flogging the house It appears this was the source of the 'problems' in India. If they are taking steps to get rid of it that suggests the problem is going to be removed and they can return to business as usual. A terrible shame if so IMO because the only chance we had of being rid of the scum was if the Indian authorities forced it.

Any mention on whether he is going to appeal his red card so he can be in the dugout on Saturday?

Just the usual thing for the last game of the season. Everyone has to kick off at the same time and Sky want them on at lunchtime so they can broadcast them all.

So many problems. You're just accepting the party line and that Silvester is to blame for this. I ask why a bloke who has worked as a Secretary for many many years and overseen countless transfers many more complex than a 6 month loan deal would suddenly forget how to do his job. He didn't forget how to complete the sale of Adam Wharton, or any other deal that brought cash in to the club. He didn't forget how to complete naff loans and cheap deals that have served the club little purpose. Only the big juicy deal that was costing cash and big wages. Interesting. Why do you believe Silvester is to blame and who are you listening to for your information? My workplace requires people to be qualified to do the role, is she? Club secretary is a very important position, these days you even get the blame when other people make mistakes 🙂 One of the reasons the club is in this state is because we take the easy and cheap route and promote inexperience from within rather than heading out into the big wide world and finding established proven operators.

So you think the solution to what happened in January is to get rid of a vastly experienced Secretary and replace him with his assistant, and expect everything to be fine?

So the assistant takes over from her boss. Presumably on a lot less money and no experience in the role I'm sure that's the ideal way to address the 'January issues' and ensure there's no repeat.

Because there isn't one. It is bullshit fed to the fans to pretend that the January fiasco was caused by factors out of the owners/boards control and by individuals conveniently going rogue. They know people are on to them and know that the only alternative to admitting the owners and their underling are to blame is to make up this rubbish with promises of a brighter future. Meanwhile the Adam Wharton money disappears and no money gets spent. Excuse after excuse.

I think Wednesday get a result at Sunderland and Birmingham will beat a half hearted Norwich. I expect Birmingham to go ahead and hold on. So it will come down to Plymouth not beating Hull....

The only way we'll be looking at new goalkeepers is in the unlikely event either Pears or Wahlstedt attract cash bids from elsewhere and we manage to sell them. That will be a financially motivated decision depending on whether anyone entices us with cash. Until that happens both will be under contract and they won't be worrying about that position in the transfer window.