Greetings from an Ipswich outsider. This has been a fascinating few pages to read, especially about Paul Lambert and how people think about him here. From an Ipswich perspective, Chaddyrovers is pretty much on the money and seems to understand the situation here. Most fans knew McCarthy would keep us competitive and out of relegation trouble, but the relationship had soured over the last two years (as it seemed to do at Wolves with him too). It wasn't only that some of the football on display was atrocious (I think we had one shot on target in three consecutive home games earlier in the year), it was MM's constant boasting of his previous achievements and how we were effectively very lucky to have him - for a supposedly bluff Yorkshireman he seemed to have quite a thin skin too. It wasn't really surprising that eventually some fans (not all) turned on him and the relationship worsened rapidly. It sort of reached a nadir in his last derby when he visibly screamed at the fans to "f*** off". Some of the flak hurled at Ipswich fans this season about McCarthy reminded me a bit about the abuse you lot got when Steve Kean left i.e. you have to have been a fan to understand.
We are generally a pretty tolerant lot, although certain elements are getting ideas above their station. Everyone had high hopes for Paul Hurst but he seems to have made the cardinal sin of winding up the existing players from the off, and dropping our best, and three times player of the year Bialkowski. We were absolute certainties for relegation under him, we might have a chance under a new manager. In out present position with the complete absence of money to spend Lambert is about the best we could hope for I reckon, I couldn't give a stuff about his Norwich past (make it all the sweeter when we finally beat them). If I was our owner I would have said to him you're here whether we're relegated or not so get your feet under the table and get stuck in.