CHRIS DUNLAVY
Our resident expert looks at Paul Lambert’s dismal Ipswich reign
PAUL Lambert arrived at Ipswich Town in October 2018 promising to win games and - in his own words - have a lot of fun.
He departs with a relegation on his CV, the worst win record of any permanent Ipswich manager since Jackie Milburn and the jeers of supporters ringing in his ears.
If not the most unpopular manager in the club’s history then it is hard to think of a rival. Certainly nobody else has prompted supporters to set the training ground ablaze.
Starved
So did Lambert fail at Portman Road? Or did the club fail him? The answer probably lies somewhere in the middle.
Like all but a handful of his predecessors, the Scot was starved of funds by owner Marcus Evans.
Having pledged root and branch reform upon his appointment, Lambert was handed not a chainsaw but a rusty pair of secateurs.
Those close to the 51-year-old claim he repeatedly drew up lists of players, only to take delivery of third and fourth choice targets. Mick McCarthy, who spent five years rattling loose change around a begging bowl, can certainly vouch for that.
Already weary, Lambert was then ravaged by Covid-19. He contracted the virus in December, returned to the dugout in January, but has looked desperately unwell ever since.
Speaking to BBC Radio 5 Live, he described how he had come within a whisker of hospitaltile isation. “Your hair is sore, your head’s sore, the headaches and pneumonia, everything was breaking down,” he said. “It’s a horrendous virus, it really is.”
In any other walk of life, Lambert would have been signed off by a doctor and given a lengthy leave of absence, whether he wanted it or not.
Yet when most of us would be under a blanket eating toast and watching Doctors, he was allowed to return to a highly stressful job at a time when the workload was intense.
Some days, Lambert was so weak he couldn’t even watch training. How can someone in that condition possibly make rational, reasoned decisions?
In truth, however, the real damage was already done. Outgoing and inclusive in his first six months, Lambert was not held responsible for relegation to the Championship and his candid assessment of the club’s failings drew praise from the fanbase.
Yet as the team laboured under the weight of reasonable expectation in League One, Lambert grew increasingly hoshuddled and defensive. Players with international caps and Championship experience weren’t performing, yet the manager defended them to the hilt.
Fair questions about a laboured style, squad rotation and a lack of goals were haughtily often angrily - dismissed.
Lambert obliquely blamed the media for issues that clearly ran deeper than a few negative headlines and - in what amounted to managerial suicide - banned a respected local journalist, Phil Ham, from Portman Road.
Devotion
Ham is a lifelong supporter with an unimpeachable devotion to the club. To ostracise him was a spectacular own goal and, in the eyes of many fans, symbolic of Lambert’s disdain for their concerns.
By the time results improved, goodwill was gone and all bridges burned. Both parties were entrenched.
And when Lambert - still hampered by illness - turned his ire on Evans, his final lifeline was severed.
Initial reports suggested he was replaced by Paul Cook as part of a prospective takeover, denied by the club but clearly underway. True or not, Evans had tired of Lambert’s public criticism of the club’s structure and a face-to-face row last Thursday sealed the manager’s fate.
Given his conduct in recent months, Lambert can have few complaints - and with a five-year contract to cash in, he probably won’t.
But the broader reality is that Ipswich were incapable of functioning with an owner tired of owning the club and a manager tired of managing it. One of those problems is fixed; the other - for now - remains a significant impediment to success.