So What’s Next For Ipswich Town Football Club?

Staying in the Sky Bet Championship for yet another season seems no longer to be a real issue.

Five points accrued from our last three rather difficult fixtures, has surely ensured that we will be doing all again next August in the same place the Championship, at around about the same time.

We currently find ourselves in 13th position and a good 11 points away from Wigan who occupy the last relegation spot.

We are fully fifteen points off Sheffield Wednesday, who are in the last play-off place available so what more have we got to play for – except perhaps pride?

With a depleted squad I suppose the main motivation for some of the younger players and perhaps too, the new incumbents, is to nail down a first team spot but with so many injuries just now, even that should not be too testing.

That said, poor Teddy Bishop, who burst into the first team picture two years ago, has been struggling with injuries and a loss of form and manager Mick McCarthy is wondering whether we’ll ever see the Bish of old?

McCarthy explained to Radio Suffolk after the Brighton game that he still has a lot of work to do to get back to where he was.

‘He`s got to get in the 18 and get in the team and show me that`s where he wants to be? Two years ago it was Teddy Bishop and somebody else. Well, he`s got to get back to that and I`m hoping that`ll be the case. I know he`s had a lot of time out with injuries in his career so far.’

Ipswich face another huge test at Portman Road on Saturday, when the Blues face a rampant Leeds United and without their talisman Tom Lawrence, who got his tenth yellow against the Seagulls and now faces a depressing two game ban.

It is bad enough losing him to the men from Yorkshire, without having to suffer the insufferable against those Norfolk folk!

Who replaces him is not easy to assess at the moment because we are missing so many important players in a number of key areas.

McCarthy might have to play horses for courses and reshuffle his pack and go back to 4-4-2 but he is reluctant to do that after our more recent revival, which has seen us pull further away from the danger zone and back into relative safety.

Frank Weston – Editor of Vital Ipswich