Ipswich hope doomed Premier League return won’t derail upward trajectory

When Ipswich host Arsenal on Sunday it will be one day short of 23 years since, on a sun-dappled afternoon at Highbury, a hefty nail was hammered into the Suffolk side’s relegation coffin. Arsenal were en route to a dazzling league title and their 2-0 victory was routine; with four games left George Burley’s team, dejected and in freefall, were gazing into the abyss. After tumbling down it, they did not return until this season.

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This time around Portman Road will be the stage and Arsenal, if not too distracted by a golden opportunity to rule Europe, may apply the final blow. Ipswich will go down this weekend if they fail to win and West Ham and Wolves both take three points. They are 14 points shy of safety with six matches remaining and, on the face of things, their first top-flight campaign for more than two decades, has brought unbridled misery.

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Yet it does not quite feel like that around Ipswich. There is little of the sullenness or resignation that tars the atmospheres around Leicester and Southampton, who ascended alongside them in 2023-24 and occupy the two spaces below. Kieran McKenna’s players have not been good enough to stay up but they have, on all bar a handful of occasions, been competitive. More than anything, they have discovered the extent to which things have changed while they were away.

In late December a buccaneering Liam Delap spearheaded their deserved 2-0 win against Chelsea and Ipswich looked a viable bet to stay up. But they have lost all six of their home games since then, winning only once away, at Bournemouth. A punishing run of defeats against Brighton, Manchester City and Liverpool in January, with 12 goals conceded and only one to their credit, visibly drained confidence. When a doomed Southampton smash-and-grabbed their way to a late win at Portman Road on 1 February, Ipswich’s course was firmly set.

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It stalls the momentum of a juggernaut that barely let up after McKenna’s appointment in December 2021. They were going nowhere in League One at the time but Ipswich swept to double promotions on a wave of euphoria and their manager, still only 38, became the hottest property in English football. He could have departed amid serious interest from Brighton, Chelsea and Manchester United but opted to sign a hefty new deal.

“This year has been a challenge, it was always going to be a challenge,” McKenna said last week, asserting his intention to stay on. It would be harsh to suggest his stock has fallen dramatically. Although it is unlikely he will be in the conversation for vacancies at clubs of European standing, there is little sense he has been found out or has failed. Instead the acknowledgment is Ipswich had too much to do having rattled through the leagues, the task of eclipsing clubs replete with years of Premier League money and experience proving too stern.

Nonetheless there will surely be an inquest into how Ipswich might have made a closer fist of things. Even if they went up with a squad almost bereft of top-flight savvy, a summer spend of £110m stated their intent. So did the expensive loan signing of Kalvin Phillips, a solid performer when available but absent at key points with injuries.

Some of the signings have not paid off. The goalkeeper Arijanet Muric was on a hiding to nothing when replacing the popular Vaclav Hladky, who had been a peerless constructor from the back, but did not help himself in making two early errors at the Etihad. He has not been seen since Saints’ Suffolk heist, for which he was far from blameless, and is now nursing a shoulder injury. The initial £10m fee paid to Burnley might have been better spent.

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The wingers Jack Clarke and Jaden Philogene, the latter a long-term target who arrived for £20m in January, should be formidable prospects in the Championship but have not yet adapted to the Premier League. Along with the excellent Omari Hutchinson, who will surely have suitors this summer, they were part of a broad policy based on signing young English talent that always looked a high-wire act against top-flight expertise and physicality. Too often Ipswich have looked lightweight in the final third.

Perhaps that strategy will aid them, though, when they seek to return. Ipswich are safe from profitability and sustainability problems and this season’s bump in the road will not deter a deep-pocketed American ownership who knew they were ahead of schedule. A new training ground is under construction and the academy should soon receive category one status.

There will be no fire sale, although a certain departure is the 22-year-old Delap. Undoubtedly the success story of Ipswich’s season, the striker will be available for a bargain £30m upon their demotion. In today’s market he is worth at least twice that, but Ipswich were among interested parties who knew the deal when signing him from Manchester City last summer. He is a generational talent but it would be remiss not to highlight his improvement under McKenna’s coaching.

McKenna and Ipswich can also point to an injury list that has made continuity impossible. In particular it has decimated a right flank that had long been calibrated as the team’s most direct, physical department. Chiedozie Ogbene was sidelined for the season almost immediately after joining from Luton and Wes Burns, who is acutely tuned into McKenna’s methods, tore an anterior cruciate ligament in January. Axel Tuanzebe, their best right-back, has struggled to stay available. A rare chemistry took Ipswich here and elements of that intangible magic have drifted away.

Last weekend’s draw at Chelsea brought some frustration in reminding that, for long periods of most games, Ipswich have not been far off. They have dropped 27 points from winning positions and routinely pose a headache. Next season they will bear heavier expectation; the task is to master the shift in tone and come back stronger. “I think there’s still the potential to make some big strides over the next few years,” McKenna said. Ipswich hope this year has been a light stumble.