Ipswich Town vs MK Dons Preview & Matchday Thread
Posted: Thu Apr 08, 2021 1:14 am
Ipswich Town v MK Dons
Saturday 10th April 2021 – 15:00
Portman Road
Pre-Match Thoughts - Mike
A Bright New Dawn..............
It's all rather apt that what was quite possibly the worst performance from Town against bottom side Rochdale turned out to be the last installment of the Marcus Evans story, a story that started off full of expectation and yet which ultimately ended in bitter disappointment and undeniable failure. For Thirteen years Evans has been at the helm of our beloved club and sadly for the latter part of that period at least it has all been a downward spiral culminating in our current status as a Mid table league One club.
I think it is fair to say we have had very little to get excited about during the last Thirteen years, One Play Off Semi Final apart it has basically been mid table mediocrity, relegation and a season on season decline, something had to change, the rot had set in and was in danger of becoming terminal, not for many many years had we seen our club in the Third tier of English Football and yet we are still finding the going tough, even at this level.
None of us know if this will turn out to be a good thing or another disaster in waiting but we HAD to try a different route, I think every single Town fan will now admit change was imperative, sometimes you just need change. The early noises coming from our new owners are as you would expect, positive, exciting, promising and most definitely refreshing, quite what is meant by Substantial Investment into the playing side of the club remains to be seen but this consortium will only make money on their investment if the team are successful, that much is obvious and the only way we are going to deliver any level of success is with sound Investment so it's very much in our new owners hands, the way the deal is set up through Pension money dictates profit has to be made so in some ways I see that as a big plus.
Our New Owners.........
Gamechanger 20 Ltd have bought the club from Marcus Evans for a reported 40 Million Pounds with a promise of an irrevocable commitment to fund not just the purchase of the football club, but also to support a long-term business plan to invest in the team, infrastructure, our fans’ experience, the academy and the club’s role in the wider community. They have also agreed to commit to the new manager having their full support, and add to that a fair treatment of all Employees and shareholders, only with that criteria being met was Marcus Evans prepared to relinquish ownership of Ipswich Town Football Club, it is understood the deal was being discussed for over a year so this decision has clearly not been taken lightly.
So just who are our new owners ? Mike O' Leary is the new Chairman of ITFC, he will be aided with the running of the club by Brett Johnson, Berke Bakay and Mark Detmer all of whom jointly manage ORG, the company which are basically the new owners of the Football club with 90% ownership of Gamechanger 20 Ltd. Marcus has spoken of a large part of the existing debt being written off leaving us with a substantially smaller debt which clearly went towards making us a much more appealing proposition.
Marcus Evans................
I have no doubt that when Marcus Evans bought Ipswich Town Thirteen years he genuinely had good intentions for the Football club, Vetted and found by David Sheepshanks hours before the "lights were being turned off" Evans was understandably viewed as the saviour at a time when the very existence of our club was under real threat. His lack of Football knowledge in running a Football club was very soon to become evident and his reluctance to be seen in the public eye was a massive handicap that haunted him throughout his time here, there have been numerous times we have felt like a rudderless ship floating aimlessly into an abyss. Mistake after mistake and bad decision after bad decision have sadly become the norm in recent years, again I have no doubt every one was taken with advice from so called experts and undertaken for all the right reasons, the ridiculous rumours from day One that he was in it to asset strip the club have as expected proved unfounded.
While I am pleased to see the back of Marcus Evans and his time here I also feel a sense of gratitude towards the man who like it or not saved our club from extinction, only people with bitterness towards him would argue it, there was no queue of potential buyers, Sheepshanks confirmed this, so it was a risk that had to be taken and thankfully we took it.
Year on Year Evans has spunked away Millions keeping us afloat, yes the investment in the Football side of things has definitely been a contributory factor in our current demise but the likes of Jewell, Keane, McCarthy, Hurst and Lambert should all take a good hard look at themselves for One reason or another because they are all partly to blame, some more than others.
Marcus Evans leaves with my best wishes and thanks for what he tried to do for the club, good intentions but terrible results will be a legacy of his time here, his parting shot is that he has hopefully left us in the hands of people who have a clear vision and desire for success here, he has after all rebuffed several other offers to buy the club at times that I am sure would have been financially tempting for him to walk away and cut his loses, he chose to stay and lose more, add to that he has written off a large amount of debt, yes he's recouped 40 Million and why shouldn't he !! I wish him well but equally I am delighted it is now at an end.
Oh Yes The Football.........
I almost forgot we have a game to speak of but quite frankly what happens in the next Eight games is Irrelevant, any kind of success this season would be a massive plus but I think we are gearing up for a big push next season under the new owners and Manager, I really don't want to harp back to Rochdale away, it was abhorrent in every way and sums up why the events of today were long overdue.
MK Dons are up next at Portman Road and kick off the new era, an era we all prey will be so much better than the last, the stadium will be empty but rest assured if we get this right 20,000 crowds at Portman Road will be the norm, the feelgood factor would return very quickly indeed, let's just get through these last Eight games and what will be will be. For what it is worth I see Town stumbling to a hard fought win to get the new regime up and running. The times they are a changing, this really could be a massive Gamechanger. COYB'S
The Opposition – MK Dons
Milton Keynes was established as a new town in 1967 and it was occasionally suggested that a Football League club might relocate there. Charlton Athletic briefly mooted re-basing in "a progressive Midlands borough" during a planning dispute with their local council in 1973, and the relocation of nearby Luton Town to Milton Keynes was repeatedly suggested from the 1980s onwards. Another team linked with the new town was Wimbledon Football Club.
Wimbledon, established in south London in 1889 and nicknamed "the Dons", were elected to the Football League in 1977. They thereafter went through a "fairytale" rise from obscurity and by the end of the 1980s were established in the top division of English football.
Despite Wimbledon's new prominence, the club's modest home stadium at Plough Lane remained largely unchanged from its non-league days. The club's then owner Ron Noades identified this as a problem as early as 1979, extending his dissatisfaction to the ground's very location. Interested in the stadium site designated by the Milton Keynes Development Corporation, Noades briefly planned to move Wimbledon there by merging with a non-league club in Milton Keynes, and to this end purchased debt-ridden Milton Keynes City. However, he then decided that the club would not get higher crowds in Milton Keynes and abandoned the idea.
In 1991, after the Taylor Report was published recommending the redevelopment of English football grounds, Wimbledon left Plough Lane to groundshare at Crystal Palace's ground, Selhurst Park. Sam Hammam, who now owned Wimbledon, said the club could not afford to redevelop Plough Lane and that the groundshare was a temporary arrangement while a new ground was sourced in South-West London. A new stadium for Wimbledon proved hard to arrange. Frustrated by what he perceived as a lack of support from Merton Council, Hammam began to look further afield and by 1996 was pursuing a move to Dublin, an idea that most Wimbledon fans strongly opposed. Hammam sold the club to two Norwegian businessmen, Kjell Inge Røkke and Bjørn Rune Gjelsten, in 1997, and a year later sold Plough Lane to Safeway supermarkets. Wimbledon were relegated from the Premier League at the end of the 1999–2000 season.
Starting in 2000, a consortium led by music promoter Pete Winkelman proposed a large retail development in Milton Keynes including a Football League-standard stadium. The consortium proposed that an established League club move to use this site; it approached Luton, Wimbledon, Crystal Palace, Barnet and Queens Park Rangers. In 2001, Røkke and Gjelsten appointed a new chairman, Charles Koppel, who was in favour of this idea, saying it was necessary to stop the club going out of business. To the fury of most Wimbledon fans, Koppel announced on 2 August 2001 that the club intended to relocate to Milton Keynes. After the Football League refused permission, Wimbledon launched an appeal, leading to a Football Association arbitration hearing and subsequently the appointment of a three-man independent commission to make a final and binding verdict. The League and FA stated opposition but the commissioners ruled in favour, two to one, on 28 May 2002.
Having campaigned against the move, a group of disaffected Wimbledon fans reacted to this in June 2002 by forming their own non-League club, AFC Wimbledon, to which most of the original team's support defected. The original Wimbledon intended to move to Milton Keynes immediately but were unable to do so until a temporary home in the town meeting Football League criteria could be found. The club remained at Selhurst Park in the meantime and in June 2003 went into administration. With the move threatened and the club facing liquidation, Winkelman decided to buy it himself. He secured funding for the administrators to keep the team operating with the goal of getting it to Milton Keynes as soon as possible. The club arranged the temporary use of the National Hockey Stadium in Milton Keynes and played its first match there in September 2003.
Nine months later, Winkelman's Inter MK Group bought the club out of administration and announced changes to its name, badge and colours—the team was renamed Milton Keynes Dons Football Club.
The first season for the club as MK Dons was the 2004–05 season and they managed to stay in League One on the final day of the season. The following season, MK Dons struggled all year, and were relegated to League Two.
The following season (2006–07) was more successful under new Manager Martin Allen. MK Dons looked more consistent than they had done in either of the previous two seasons. They eventually qualified for the play-offs, being knocked out at the semi-final stage.
For the 2007–08 season, former England captain Paul Ince took over as manager. MK Dons won the Football League Trophy, and capped the trophy win with the League Two championship, and the subsequent promotion to League One for the 2008–09 season.
In the 2008–09 season, MK Dons under Robert Di Matteo missed out on an automatic promotion spot by two points, finishing third. They were knocked out of the play-offs by Scunthorpe United.
On 10 May 2010, Karl Robinson was appointed as the club's new manager and, at 29 years of age, Robinson was then the youngest manager in the Football League. In his first season at the club, MK Dons finished 5th in 2010–11 Football League One but were beaten in the play-off semi-finals again.
The 2011–12 season brought similar results to the previous season, with the Dons finishing 5th in 2011–12 Football League One and again not progressing past the play-off semi-finals.
MK Dons experienced their best ever FA Cup campaign in the 2012–13 season, reaching the fifth round of the competition for the first time ever in their footballing history.
Following a disappointing end to the 2013-14 Football League One season (finishing 10th, after being in the top five for much of the season), Karl Robinson made some shrewd summer signings to take the football club forward in 2014–15.
The 2014–15 season began well. The highlight event of the season's first month was being drawn against Manchester United in the League Cup second round, having dispatched AFC Wimbledon in the first. The Dons recorded a shock 4–0 victory over Manchester United in front of a sell out crowd at stadium:mk. A few weeks later, the Dons recorded their record win, a 6–0 thrashing of Colchester United at home. That record did not last long as it was broken once again with a 7–0 demolition of Oldham Athletic on 20 December 2014. Just over a month later, on 31 January 2015, the Dons recorded a joint record 5–0 away win against Crewe Alexandra, earning a short-lived top spot. On 3 May the club secured promotion to the Football League Championship for the first time on the final day of the season.
The Dons started life in the Championship by beating Rotherham United away 4–1 on the opening day of the season and gaining seven points from a possible 12 in their first four games. They were not able to sustain this form throughout the season - the Dons did not win any of their final 11 games and they returned to League One after finishing 23rd in the Championship.
On 23 October 2016, Karl Robinson left the club by mutual consent, following a 3–0 home to defeat to Southend United the previous day, which had extended the Dons' winless run to four games and left them 19th in the League One table.
Robbie Neilson joined MK Dons as manager from Heart of Midlothian in his native Scotland, with his first official game in charge coincidentally an FA Cup tie against Karl Robinson's new club Charlton Athletic. Neilson's reign started off well, with his second game in charge a win over AFC Wimbledon, and in late January 2017 a local derby win against Northampton Town.
The following season started badly and Neilson left by mutual consent on 20 January 2018 after a run of one win in eleven league games with the club 21st in the table.
Under Neilson's successor Dan Micciche, the club continued to struggle in the relegation places. Following a run of poor results with only three wins in sixteen matches in charge, Micciche left the club on 22 April 2018, with assistant manager Keith Millen taking over as a caretaker. On the penultimate weekend of the season another defeat mathematically relegated them to League Two (leaving them seven points from safety with one game to play). Former Exeter City manager Paul Tisdale was appointed in June 2018 after 12 years at his previous club.
After a season where the Dons were tipped to be favourites for promotion, the club spent most of the season around the automatic promotion and play-off places. MK Dons won their final game of the season in front of nearly 21,000 fans meaning they returned to League One at the first attempt.
Following a poor start to the 2019–20 season in which the Dons achieved only one point from a possible 27, the worst run of results in the club's history, Tisdale's contract with the club was mutually terminated on 2 November 2019. The next day, Russell Martin was announced as the new permanent first-team manager; he had joined as a player earlier in the year. Fixtures were suspended on 13 March 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and the clubs later voted to end the season prematurely with immediate effect on 9 June 2020, with the final table decided upon by an unweighted points-per-game system resulting in the club finishing the season in 19th place, thus avoiding relegation.
The Manager – Russell Martin
Form Guide
Ipswich Last 5 Matches – Currently in 8th place with 59 points
16 Mar Fleetwood 2 - 0 Ipswich Town
20 Mar Portsmouth 2 - 1 Ipswich Town
27 Mar Wigan Athletic 0 - 0 Ipswich Town
2 Apr Ipswich Town 2 - 1 Bristol Rovers
5 Apr Rochdale 0 - 0 Ipswich Town
MK Dons Last 5 Matches – Currently in 13th place with 54 points
13 Mar Milton Keynes 3 - 2 Accrington
16 Mar Milton Keynes 2 - 1 Plymouth
20 Mar Burton Albion 1 - 2 Milton Keynes
27 Mar Milton Keynes 1 - 0 Doncaster
5 Apr Milton Keynes 0 - 2 Crewe Alexandra
Match referee – Tom Nield
IPSWICH TOWN 1 MK DONS 0