On Thursday I produced a blog that contained some of my feelings towards the current state of Ipswich Town Football Club. I was hoping some of the questions that I felt needed to be answered with the current state of the team would be answered by the end of the transfer window on Friday evening.
They weren't.
On Friday lunchtime I visited the best Ipswich Town news site on the internet, TWTD, only to find the headline "Jewell Doesn't Expect Any Deadline Deals." Well, that certainly threw a spanner in the works.
For several years Ipswich have had a weakness in defence. I'm sure Jewell is well aware of this, and in the summer he strengthened this area of the team by signing a goalkeeper in the form of Scott Loach from Watford, a centre back by the name of Luke Chambers and a young right back known as Elliot Hewitt. These 3 signings would give us some depth in defence but, in my opinion, they would not bring our defence up to the level to challenge for the top half of the table. We needed another good centre back to play alongside Chambers, as our only other current centre back is Tommy Smith who I would class as "okay". He's young, still learning but lacks pace and is prone to mistakes. He's no more than a slightly below-average Championship level centre back. We also needed a centre back as we have 2 senior centre backs at the club, along with young defender Jack Ainsley who isn't very good at all. So, to me it was obvious, press forward for another defender by the end of the transfer window to improve our defensive issues and it would have been a good window.
No-one was signed.
Jewell has since stated he is looking at bringing in one on loan with a view to a permanent move in January. This is not good enough. Loan signings can only be brought to the club for 93 days, which would mean we would be back down to 2 centre backs and Jack Ainsley when the busy Christmas schedule began. I'm sure that the manager and board are aware of this, or there has been a huge oversight on their behalf, but the fact they haven't signed another defender on a permanent deal is worrying.
The club is intent on balancing the books and preparing itself for when the Financial Fair Play rules kick in. This is a good strategy to have, much better than the one first employed by Marcus Evans when he took over the club. The strategy would work much better if the manager set up the club to locate young and hungry players from the lower leagues and abroad. The amount of clubs that have employed this policy and succeeded proves that it is something that needs to be done. It can also be backed up from within the club with the success of Aaron Cresswell, who was signed from Tranmere last summer and went on to be Player of the Year in his first season here. It also lead him to be linked with a move to the Premier League which may have effected his mindset at the beginning of the season, something I'm positive he can recover from and get back to his form last season. Elliot Hewitt is another signing from the lower leagues, he's currently injured and I have no knowledge of his abilities, but he is rated by coaches at both club and international level so is looking like another positive signing from the lower leagues.
My honest feelings are that come the summer we won't be looking for just players from the lower leagues, but also a manager. Jewell doesn't give me confidence, although the transfer failings are not entirely his fault, and bringing a young manager with better knowledge of the lower leagues would bring this club forward and kick start the long-term rebuilding process. The season has a long time left to run, and as long as we're not in a relegation fight I will be satisfied with the outcome. Let's hope it's a fairly decent season.
After today's draw at home to Huddersfield there were some positives to take away. Paul Taylor appears to be a good signing. Luke Chambers scored and Scott Loach played brilliantly. Having a goal of building the club for promotion in the long run is the best policy for the club. I mean, it certainly worked out well for George Burley, didn't it?
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