roversfan99

Out for the season.

The majority of our team is certainly individually a top level team. And im not sure how much credit Southgate deserves for that.

I wonder if its a case of the club refusing to release something official or them agreeing to use a third party who will not ask the pressing questions, for example whether we genuinely will try again for McGuire. Either way, it further opens our eyes to the clear lack of people working together and the lack of autonomy below the owners. Plenty of uncertainty as to mere suggestions as to what happens next. Just a mess as we all knew.

We often mention the imbalances in previous teams but I suppose the current team has them, one top centre back and then an absence of quality beyond that. The same in central midfield and issues at left back too. Those issues are heightened by the selections that Southgate does make. Even amidst average alternatives, Maguire and Henderson/Gallagher are still really poor choices.

These online sites just probably get their wage guesses from football manager. No way did we have 20k a week to offer to anyone.

I dont think people are overreacting to the friendly, numerous people have commented on how the current set of friendlies are totally unnecessary. Southgate has a poor record in general against big nations. That and too much loyalty towards underperforming players in our weak positions perhaps show he is anything but a quality manager. Lets hope United are stupid enough to take him.

Broughton and Mowbray in particular would have both benefitted significantly financially and in terms of their CVs with promotion.

The thing with the current squad aswell is that we have Bellingham, Foden, Saka, Kane, Stones, Walker and Rice, those 7 are the ones (especially the front 4) that has us down as favourites to win tournaments. But then beyond that, theres a massive drop and we are weak in a number of positions. In midfield besides Rice, its either convert a RB in Trent, play a young player in Mainoo who has barely played any football or what Southgate will do, stick with a player in Henderson who is long past it or someone like Phillips or Gallagher who are clearly absolutely nowhere near the standard of challenging for tournaments. At centre back, beside Stones there is a huge drop off again. Maguire, Dunk, Konsa, none of these again are of the level to challenge. And at left back, it will either be go with a rusty Shaw and rush him back which never works, go with the useless Chilwell or stick someone out of position. Even with some world class players doing heavy lifting, im not sure you can have 3 players that arent up to standard. And thats before you consider the manager.

This whole international window is totally pointless, no one really wants to be there and you have players at the business end of the season at club level risking injury for no reason. Not really much will be learnt. If we go into games with the best playing Chilwell, Gallagher and Maguire, we will struggle to win.

Szmodics missed his penalties v Rotherham and in the Newcastle shootout.

A competent interviewer would have asked if the McGuire signing would be revisited, especially as that was promised. We know it wont be but no grilling on it either.

Do you think the interviewer was good? I thought he lacked knowledge and once he had asked a question, he moved on and never probed further for clarity. The crap about having a tight squad is a necessity because the budget isn't competitive enough to have an average sized squad.

The guy interviewing him is clearly an idiot, maybe Broughton has purposely chosen someone to do the interview that lacks the knowledge and the ability to press and probe to give him an easy time. He repeatedly said that he "recommends" to do this and that. Seems like he is not being listened to. He recommends that we spend money on fees and wages from the Wharton money, as well as some into infrastructure and for a rainy day. Not that any of that WILL happen. We know it won't. He implies that the board knows what he thinks should be done post McGuire debacle, and that the recruitment team can't do all the work and then be let down. Clear he wants someone to be sacked, perhaps further shedding light that our staff are not all working from the same hymn sheet yet the owners clearly aren't bothered enough to do anything about it. The board of directors are between Broughton and the owners. He clearly doesn't hold much power. Broughton has been told that the owners issues wont impact the summer. Yeah right. He also said that the owners remain 100% committed so that alone renders the rest of the interview to be meaningless.

Equally, he clearly isn't on gardening leave as @Mercer cryptically insinuated before ignoring any questions to clarify that suggestion.

Learnt his lessons based on that satisfying loss.

Obviously dont want him injured but wouldnt be much of a loss.

Is he a generational talent? Bit early to be saying stuff like that. Im sure Henderson will be ahead of him anyway.

I wonder how he is seen by the Swedish public. I think he is their first foreign manager and being a Dane might not sit well, but then again he did manage Malmo.

My point was that we were in far healthier positions that we could have pushed on from at the two times mentioned compared to having come up with a squad in League 1 that was too good for that level but many of whom were not playere that you could build a promotion push around. But as ever, the way we are run by the owners prevents us from pushing on.

What Ipswich have done since promotion is pretty remarkable to be fair, our League 1 season followed a season of typical Venkys budget slashing and whilst some of the players were a class above in League 1, they were miles off being top 6 players in the Championship. Finishing 15th and then 11th wasn't a failure considering we had the likes of Bennett, Evans, Smallwood, an aging Graham, Mulgrew, Williams etc that needed phasing out and it was just before we had an influx of good young players coming through. The two points of the last decade or so in which we should have pushed on were with the side under Bowyer, we had a really core but needed a proper manager and more quality on top, instead we went down the selling everyone off and keeping Bowyer for too long route. We also should have pushed on after Mowbray had laid good foundations establishing the likes of Travis, Buckley, Wharton, Lenihan and a few of his own signings, before Tomasson then came to take that on further. In those 2 seasons where we just fell short, we needed to sell the players running down their deals and reinvest and create a deeper and better squad. Instead Venkys went down the route of not spending when in good positions, ensuring that we rejected any opportunity to get some money in to reinvest and threw in getting themselves into a legal issue causing total turmoil and a slide down the table. Thats the Venkys project, some good work is done in spite of them and then they ensure that it all collapses and sets us back years before it can start to happen again, hence why a top 6 finish is above our ceiling.

Back to focusing upon the deckchairs on the Venkys titanic and only blaming them for not sacking people. The pertintent issue is that for a number of years they havent been investing in the team, culminating in uncompetitive cutbacks due to financial irregularities. Who would benefit mostly from us not spending the owners money? Probably the owners. Doesnt mean that others dont warrant criticism and they get it too. Incompetence should have been rewarded with a P45. But if there is purposeful sabotage of deals, it wouldnt make any sense for it to be anyone but the owners to save money. We shouldnt be run either where we need to get deals authorised by owners who have history not getting back promptly when we dont have much time left.

Come on. Hes in a job of a better prestige and pay packet than he likely will ever get again. You would throw that away because you arent happy that other staff members were trying to organise transfers?

The owners shouldnt be refusing to authorise deals full stop, thats the issue. And they shouldnt be refusing to spend a money when a club record fee comes in. Having all of these incompetent staff underneath only compounds our issues. Had we signed him on a loan with an option we wouldnt have utilised, that would have been the best possible solution under terrible conditions. As it was, we fucked up even that.

Butterfly effect, but totally unfair to pin that on Sven. Criticise the selection issues but what unfolded after is a seperate issue to that.

Why would he leave? He is hardly going to walk into a similar job at a similar or bigger club, and why would he give up a job which benefits him and his family over a transfer issue.