Four Years Today But Yet Further Away

When he took charge the Blues were bottom of the Championship and five points from safety, having taken just seven points from 13 matches and life was looking decidedly bleak for the Tractor Boys.

Almost immediately he began to turn things around with a priceless 0-1 victory at Birmingham City, which was a back to the walls exercise in itself but it proved to be very necessary at the time.

In the end, Town finished in a respectable 14th place in the table and given the plight we found ourselves in when he took charge, it was quite a remarkable achievement.

The next season we steered well clear of those relegation places and ended up in ninth, just four points of Brighton in sixth and our eventual fate was not sealed until the last day of the season.

Then the following season in 2014/15 we made it to the play-off’s but were roundly beaten in the end by arch rivals Norwich City and then of course last term we narrowly missed out on the play-off’s again, as we ended our campaign in seventh place.

It is this term that the patience of the fans has evaporated and the catalyst for our troubles has been threefold. A lack of goals – due it could be argued to not replacing Daryl Murphy in the last transfer window. The standard of our football too has been largely unentertaining and perhaps thirdly, the fact that we lack any real creativity in midfield.

The result of which is that we find ourselves in 16th place in the Sky Bet Championship and going nowhere except backwards it seems.

The last straw was the humiliating 2-2 draw at Portman Road at the weekend to bottom club Rotherham United. Even Mick McCarthy had suggested that this was a must win game and yet we almost lost it!

But the manager remains fairly up-beat in the light of all that is going on around him and said,’I think the average tenure is around twelve months for a manager and I was looking and there`s me and Simon Grayson, who is just behind me on almost four years.’

He said he has no intention of quitting and that the job has really only just begun. Whether he will be allowed to complete it may well depend on where we find ourselves at Christmas time?

Frank Weston – Editor of Vital Ipswich