Marcus Evans Must Pull Out His Wallet Again

After our last defeat away to Nottingham Forest manager Mick McCarthy summed things up by saying, ‘In the end, that game has probably summed our season up – some good, some bad and some indifferent.’

That was very diplomatic and I think a more accurate description of the season as a whole would have been some good, some very bad and some downright ugly.

Unfortunately they were not evenly shared and as far as I can recall, there was an awful lot more of the ugly than of the good or the bad, and it had a lot to do with the way our manager thinks.

We all know his football philosophy, which is a draw is always a good result and his habit of singing the praises of the opposition – even before a ball has been kicked!

Let us be brutally frank about this season. It has been a diabolical one and we eventually finished in 16th place with a minus 10 goal difference and yet, the way our manager gloats with some of those after match comments, suggests we had made it to the play-offs again!

What is even more bewildering perhaps, is the respect that owner Marcus Evans appears to have for a manager who has produced a team that is clearly going backwards and backwards is a reflection of the style of football we have come to expect from a squad who seem rudderless at times.

As I have stated on a number of occasions already, I am not someone who likes to see a manager lose his job and the fact that Watford have gone through nine managers in just five seasons explains why they lack any sort of continuity. That said however, they did manage to get back into the Premier briefly so it was not all bad and a lot better than our good selves.

I think the problem with Ipswich Town these days is two-fold. Mick McCarthy enjoys the challenge of buying cheap and Marcus Evans enjoys helping him with it!

We all know our owner has oodles of cash and he could dip into his purse strings again and give our manager some serious spending power.

Although we have seen with Roy Keane and Paul Jewell that this is no guarantee of success, it is about time he thought about employing it again – otherwise next season we really could drop out of the Championship and end up like another Coventry City!


Frank Weston – Editor of Vital Ipswich