IPSWICH TOWN Bible

Another deadline day is here and as we nearer the end (it’s nearing 3pm as I write this), there is little evidence the biggest gap in the team is going to be filled. A proven striker/goalscorer who will take the place of Daryl Murphy who departed Town for Newcastle 6 months ago. Of course this window hasn’t been without signings, and we did get a striker - Kieffer Moore. Now no disrespect to the guy, he is hopefully one who in time become a great player for us, but he doesn’t bring experience at this level which we desperately need in a league that is getting tougher and tougher to compete in.

Other signings include Steven Taylor on a short term deal until summer, same goes for Jordan Spence and the most exciting signing - Danny Rowe. He is on a long term deal and should provide some much needed flair when Tom Lawrence goes back to Leicester at the end of the season. We also have the loan signing of Toumani Diagouraga from Leeds until the end of the season. I think this alone sees the end of the Skuglas partnership, and Douglas looking likely to actually leave the club. 

But still we wait for a striker replacement. And whilst we wait patiently for that, we hear the rumblings that captain Luke Chambers is currently in talks with his former club Nottingham Forest. As most Town fans know, he has the option of a further year on his current contract but that is up to the man at the top to trigger.. and he has not. We may well have seen Chambers for the last time, but there’s nothing concrete as yet.

For now we all wait, hold our breathes for some kind of official information from the club on what to expect for the rest of the day. Oh, and we play Derby tonight which I’m pretty sure more people have forgotten about. The atmosphere may well be toxic if things go badly over the next few hours.

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Ipswich Town 2 - 2 Lincoln City (FA Cup 3rd)

It ends in a draw after going behind twice and being completely outplayed by the National League side. Tom Lawrence has yet again saved Mick McCarthy from what should have been a guaranteed sacking (we know he won’t resign, that’s just not in his nature). The team now have to deal with a replay on a weeknight, something that this struggling bunch of players really don’t need. I have to say, it is becoming more and more obvious these players seem like they don’t want to play this way - or even more so - for this manager. 

Next up, Blackburn Rovers at Portman Road a week today. I can’t see anything good coming from that.

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Well this is not going too well at all. Lincoln go 1 up early in the first half, Town get a leveller through a superb individual run and goal from the ever excellent Tom Lawrence but then the team do nothing to capitalise on the momentum of getting a quick equaliser. Lincoln are the better team as it stands, it really does seem likely that a replay is on the cards. 

Huge credit to the Lincoln fans today, 5000 of them filling the Cobbold stand.

Look at the Lincoln fans mick & realise what a dynamic manager can give a club #imps #itfc pic.twitter.com/6TkvjAKLUa

— paul seear (@tractorboy60)

January 7, 2017

It’s an exciting time for most clubs when those trying to push for promotion or survival flex their business muscles by bringing in recruits to bolster their squad. That’s what most clubs do, but as ever with Ipswich the feeling is it will be another window that passes the club by and any player that comes in will be broken down to the Mick McCarthy style of play pretty quickly. As ever I hope this isn’t going to be the case, but for almost every season MM has been in charge, not one player has maintained any kind of season after season quality.

So far, 5 days into the window the only business that has been completed by the Tractor Boys is Luke Varney (who was only on a deal until January I believe) has left the club and penned an 18th contract with Burton Albion. For Burton and for Varney I think this is a great deal. Varney who is at the latter stages of his career (not many can keep up the Ibrahimović, Defoe or Totti levels of play as a striker into their later 30s) will be chuffed to have gained another year and a half of wages, and for Burton, he will definitely provided them with goals and a great target man upfront. For a player who had such nasty leg injuries, he has one hell of a leap on him still.

But other than that, no signings are looking to land just yet. Rumours of Danny Ward from Rotherham and Cauley Woodrow from Fulham have been bouncing about, but nothing seemingly solid as yet. In fact, only this morning Town apparently had a bid for Wigan’s Max Power rejected, something that no one saw coming. The biggest problem here being the ‘rejected’ part. So many times over summer and previous windows have Town had bids rejected, it’s becoming the norm for the club. The biggest problem being the amounts of money clubs are asking for players have quadrupled over the last few years, especially since the club last invested ‘big sums of money’ for players. People talk to me about the large sums invested by Keane, but those numbers are fractions compared to players of probably worse standard today! Marcus Evans seems to think he can invest in younger players to develop, but they are going to cost just as much if not more than the experienced players brought in during the Keane years.

So let’s see what happens this January, but I’m not holding out for anything more than the usual loans and maybe, just maybe, the signing on someone like Danny Ward. The biggest worry is if the club DO signed decent players, will Mick be able to get the best out of them? I, along with many others, fear the worst.