Is Mick McCarthy A Dead Man Talking?

Mick McCarthy certainly talks the talk but does he actually walk the walk and if so, is he finally heading for the exit door at Ipswich Town football club?

He suggested very recently that he was planning for next season regardless of what happens in the meantime. There was even a little hint that he might stick around a bit longer when his current contract expires.

Now it is easy to blame McCarthy for everything that has gone wrong at the club but in truth, he is just part of the problem. A lack of investment in the playing staff and an owner who sees himself as the new Howard Hughes doesn’t help team morale and nor do dwindling gates receipts and disenfranchised supporters.

This club is struggling on so many different fronts just now and it always seems to be a case of one step forward and two steps back.

On Saturday at Portman Road, against bottom of the table Burton Albion, Town were atrocious and as a spectacle this game ranks as perhaps the worst team performance in living memory and I have been watching the Blues for more than fifty years.

Only keeper Bartosz Bialkowski spared our blushes and once again he deservedly walked away with the Man of the Match award.

The problems are not all down to Mick McCarthy but the side he picks and the tactics he employs most certainly are and what I cannot quite fathom, after an appalling first half display, is why he could not manage to galvanise the players into action after the interval? This is what dedicated and motivated managers do!

Admittedly, for the first few minutes of the second period Town looked more motivated but this quickly dissipated into the nondescript nature of the first half and the longer the game went on, the less likely it looked that Ipswich could take the game by the scruff of the neck.

Town have played with a greater attacking threat this term but what started so brightly with lots of goals and lots of victories has been replaced of late with goal shy strikers and a string of disappointing defeats.

After the Sunderland away win however some hope was restored but no sooner had we began to look forward, lowly Burton Albion burst our bubble again and to make matters even worse, this diabolical display was witnessed by just 13,000 supporters.

Owner Marcus Evans is apparently aware of the rift that exists between supporters and their manager these days, and with season ticket renewals dropping through the post shortly, surely he cannot stand much more of this!

I get the feeling that McCarthy is simply going through the motions and what matters to him now is what has mattered to him most for all of his life and that is HIS future and nothing much else.

Frank Weston – Editor of Vital Ipswich