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Where is Town’s Strength In Depth?

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With the notable exception of Leicester City, the bookies know a thing or two about football and because we have become spendthrift again and other Championship clubs have been on a spending spree, our odds of reaching the top flight of English football have fallen away.

Now if you are the kind of supporter that sometimes lets your heart rule your head then perhaps this is the time to place a bet? Certainly the euphoria that greeted the arrival of Adam Webster from Portsmouth for a fee that was close to a million quid has dissipated and a dark cloud now hangs over our promotion hopes once more.

Sadly, that signing seems like a life-time ago and there has been no one headed to Portman Road since and optimism has been replaced by pessimism, as supporters begin once again to question the strategy of owner Marcus Evans and manager Mick McCarthy?

As other clubs who have aspirations of making it to the Premier League have been investing massively on new recruits, we have not and the fear is that it will be a case of same old, with any new faces being tired old familiar ones who have largely past their sell by date.

We might even acquire a new nickname, which just like the Tractor Boys was christened not by us but by our rivals. ” The Vultures ” certainly springs to mind, as we pick over the leftovers of the spending frenzy and make do with freebies and loanees that no one needs or wants anymore.

Let us hope I am wrong and that Mick McCarthy still has a trick or two up his sleeve but as the new season approaches with ever increasing rapidity, there is very serious cause for concern. Our annual Irish pilgrimage has been and gone and last night we defeated Colchester United by a solitary goal scored by Brett Pitman at the Weston Holmes Community Stadium but sadly we still lack strength in depth.

In fact, we are as a squad decidedly weaker than last term because we have lost a lot of players and we are still in desperate need of more creativity in the team.

One bright spot is that Tommy Smith is going nowhere if official sources are to be believed and just as well because he loves this club and always gives it 100 percent.

Yes, he has his faults but so do does Berra and the rest of our defence and I see today that Dean Gerken is once again the flavor of the month as he played the full 90 minutes last night apparently. What Bart Has done to deserve this is anybody’s guess?

So we are but weeks away from a new campaign and the natives are getting restless again and I think for good reason.

If we are serious about getting out of this league then we have to compete in it. Sadly so far there has been little sign of this happening.

Frank Weston – Editor of Vital Ipswich




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