Ipswich Town were relegated from the Premier League with four games to spare - but is some of the criticism fair? (Image: PA)
Ipswich Town were relegated from the Premier League with four games to spare - but is some of the criticism fair? (Image: PA)
Ipswich Town finished 19th, with just 22 points, in their first Premier League season in 22 years. Chief football writer Stuart Watson addresses some of the most common criticisms.
Did Ipswich lose too much of their promotion chemistry and spirit in the Premier League?
Did Ipswich lose too much of their promotion chemistry and spirit in the Premier League?
(Image: PA)
1: 'We should have just played the promotion team'
This is something I've seen a lot of during the final weeks of a disappointing campaign.
The theory goes that Ipswich couldn't have done a lot worse had they simply stuck with the team that got them there.
There's a feeling that the team chemistry and spirit, two of the driving forces in back-to-back promotions, was diluted with so much change.
The first thing to say, in response to that, is that few of the core group that got Ipswich up were discarded. Goalkeeper Vaclav Hladky was the only key departure last summer and he, it's important to remember, turned down a new deal.
The players brought in were vetted, from a personality point of view, to make sure they fitted in with the carefully crafted culture behind the scenes. Having spoken to to them all, that's been very apparent. So I really don't see that the 'band of brothers' bond was trashed.
Was bringing in 11 new faces last summer, plus a further four in January, too much change? Well, had there been a lot less business then the club would have left themselves open to accusations of 'lacking ambition'. Damned if you do, damned if you don't.
For me, I think the tricky balance of blending old with new, in terms of sheer numbers, was about right.
It's also important to remember that the promotion heroes weren't all instantly put on the shelf.
Sam Morsy, Leif Davis and Omari Hutchinson are in the top five when it comes to most minutes played in 24/25, while Axel Tuanzebe and Wes Burns would certainly have been right up there were it not for their injuries.
Nathan Broadhead (who missed the whole of pre-season) and Conor Chaplin (who struggled to recover from a knee injury at the turn of the year) may well have played more had they not had set-backs. The pair were unused subs only seven and six times respectively, and some of those not introductions will have been fitness related.
Given I had Liam Delap, Jens Cajuste and Dara O'Shea as my top three for Town Player of the Year, it's hard to make a strong case that Luke Woolfenden, Massimo Luongo and George Hirst, as much as I love them all, were robbed of minutes.
The one argument you could make is that Jacob Greaves hasn't been markedly better than Cameron Burgess. The former undoubtedly has a much higher ceiling going forwards though (and Burgess did still start 16 league games).
Goalkeeper Aro Muric, an £8m signing from Burnley, was dropped mid-season after a mistaken-laden start to life with the club.
Goalkeeper Aro Muric, an £8m signing from Burnley, was dropped mid-season after a mistaken-laden start to life with the club.
(Image: Ross Halls)
2: 'The recruitment wasn't good enough'
Town spent the best part of £100m on signing 12 players last summer. A further £22m was spent on four new additions in January.
Was it fair to expect more from that sort of spend? As ridiculous as it sounds, £120m+ isn't an awful lot of money in modern day terms. Town may have outspent a lot of the league, but that overlooks the fact that all of their rivals (including Leicester and Southampton) had built their multi-million Premier League squads over 10, 15, 20 transfer windows.
Getting fixated on transfer fees also overlooks where the true squad cost is too - and that's wages. Ipswich's wage bill will have almost certainly been the lowest.
Another comment I often see is 'we should have signed more players with Premier League experience'. That's easier said than done.
"The reality of acquiring players in your first year in the Premier League, having been outside it for so long, brings challenges," explained chairman Mark Ashton.
“Whilst Kieran (McKenna)'s brilliant, and we can make the football argument and the development argument, there are big finances involved now around established Premier League players. The overall cost of the package is big.
“It's about the length of contracts and the terms of those contracts. If you sat in my world you would probably be surprised at what it takes to get a deal done. Those financial deals are on a whole other level and often undoable."
Reading between the lines, a lot of established Premier League players wouldn't agree to a relegation wage reduction clause and Ipswich simply weren't prepared to roll that dice. That stance, I think, is to be admired.
I'd push back on those who say there have been more transfer misses than hits. Aro Muric clearly didn't work out and now, following the January addition of Christian Walton, there's a four-man goalkeeper unit to unpick. Ben Godfrey is another flop. When he signed it was hard to see where he fitted in and so has proved the case. Beyond those two, however, I wouldn't say there have been many more obvious disasters.
It feels harsh to call Kalvin Phillips and Chiedozie Ogbene as 'misses' given it's been injuries which have limited their minutes. We'll never know how much of a difference a fully fit and firing Phillips could have made, while Ogbene may yet turn out to be a good addition. And while I've been underwhelmed by Jaden Philogene, it's far too early to make a judgement on him.
One criticism that I do think is valid is that McKenna didn't add enough size, physicality and athleticism to his squad. With the likes of Jack Clarke, Philogene, Julio Enciso and Omari Hutchinson it feels like too many lightweight dribblers were collected when funds needed to be prioritised elsewhere.
Another is that the club should have looked for more value abroad. That's fair, though the Blues have been transparent about the fact they are still very much building their scouting network and data systems.
Was it unacceptable that Town went into the season with the inexperienced and semi-fit Ali Al-Hamadi as the sole back-up to Liam Delap? It certainly wasn't ideal, but George Hirst's knee injury happened in late July, the number of strikers both good enough and obtainable were limited and time has proven that the Blues were right to pull the plug on Armando Broja on August 29.
Liam Delap was turned from someone with an underwhelming Championship goal record into a striker that most clubs in world football want. The likes of O'Shea, Hutchinson and Ben Johnson have also seen their values rise.
A few choice sales and Ipswich would recoup much of their Premier League outlay and still have the core of a young squad full of proven Championship players.
Overall, I'd say that, within what was possible, the club got more right than it did wrong.
Did Kieran McKenna get his tactical approach to the Premier League wrong?
Did Kieran McKenna get his tactical approach to the Premier League wrong?
(Image: PA)
3: 'McKenna got his tactics wrong'
Was McKenna too naïve in the way he attacked the Premier League? Should he have done what Brentford did, in their early top flight seasons, and been more pragmatic with the set-up?
Possibly, but rewind nine months and was anyone suggesting the Blues needed to bin off their telepathic, swashbuckling style of football? No. The hope was that momentum could be ridden. It almost was too... Few can argue that going toe-to-toe wasn't the right approach in the first part of the season. Town gave Liverpool a scare on the opening day and could easily have picked up a win against the likes of Fulham, Aston Villa, Leicester and Manchester United.
Another argument that I don't think holds water is that McKenna was 'too stubborn' and 'tactically inflexible'.
After that 4-0 home thrashing by Newcastle just before Christmas, the Blues boss did switch to more of a back five/deep block. A 1-0 loss at Arsenal and 2-0 home win against Chelsea followed.
Following the chastening defeats to Man City and Liverpool, when parking the bus did little to stem the flow of goals against, it made sense to throw caution to wind again. Unfortunately it didn't work out and that home loss to Southampton was a major psychological blow.
The Blues did still go on to show they could grind out results at Aston Villa and Bournemouth. They counter-attacked well at Chelsea and Everton too. Early red cards in the heavy defeats to Arsenal and Newcastle rendered those matches virtual training sessions.
Injury-hit Town's confidence had taken a kicking by that point. It was easy for pundits to deliver a few throwaway lines. McKenna responded by saying: "The challenges we've had this season are numerous but, in my opinion, they're not particularly linked to playing style." I have to say, I agree.
One thing I would say, is that it might have been worth trying a compromise system between 4-2-3-1 and 5-4-1. Getting over-run in midfield was an area of weakness for the Blues. Could an extra body in the middle of the pitch, in more of a 3-5-2 system, worked? Having four attacking players, plus the forward-thinking Davis at left-back, did often leave Town exposed to the talents of some of the world's best.
McKenna would undoubtedly argue that it's not so black and white, that systems constantly flex and it's about players' assigned roles rather than set positions. To be fair, he knows a hell of a lot more than we all do.
One other tactical criticism, which I do think is fair to raise, is that the Blues boss wasn't proactive enough with his substitutions. There were times (the Wolves home game being the prime example) where it was clear a tiring team needed fresh legs. Of the 92 subs made, 35 of them came in the 80th minute or beyond. In fairness, due to injuries, options were often limited.
Lessons no doubt will have been learnt. It's important to recognise that not everything went wrong in what was always going to be a challenging season.
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