Seven games in and Towns league campaign has yet to get going in earnest. With some fans getting slightly agitated, Blue Review feels perhaps this isnt the time to be critical as, given upcoming fixtures, it could easily turn on its head in a very short space of time.
So we have now played seven league games and the table is beginning to take some sort of shape. Unfortunately for Town fans, it is shaping up to be a fairly unimpressive season. Our team languishes in the lower half of the table, just three points off a relegation place and already eight points adrift of an automatic promotion place. Worse still, Norwich, despite their multitude of problems have temporarily popped above us in the table.
Clearly things are not going to plan (If there ever was a plan). The question now on many impatient Town fans' lips, is will our invisible owner give Jim Magilton the push and seek a manager of his own choosing to oversee his little investment, or will Magilton be given that precious, all-too rare commodity, time?
My own slightly jaundiced view is that I doubt Marcus Evans cares that much. The terms of Town's secretive sell out were so generous to our mysterious owner, that as long as the myth of premiership money is maintained - and the club is stabilised & run in a sensible manner (which to my mind a corner shop owner could achieve quite nicely), then Ipswich Town Investment Inc (a community club now domiciled in Bermuda) remains a ludicrously profitable little exercise - at least on paper.
So if I was a betting man, I would not put money on Magilton being unceremoniously sacked by the end of September, having wasted his inheritance on a multitude of ill-judged signings. I suspect he will be allowed to see out his contract and carry on in his relatively harmless style until the end of the season - when if things improve, we might perhaps finish 12th.
Whilst that might be seen as a disaster by intolerant fans thinking instant success follows a multitude of strange signings, it is not the end of the world. The problem is that there are rather too many better-off and better run clubs than our own. Twelfth is where I think we'll finish for the simple reason that this division is a bit more competitive than last season - and we are that bit less competitive.
Yet hope is at hand. The table lies a little because we have a home game in hand, having played two away games in a row. And we actually managed to avoid defeat in both - so hey, that's an unbeaten run stretching to a dizzying three games. Better still, we now have two home games coming up that both look more than winnable. So in two games time, the team could be on a roll and on the fringe of the play off places.
We even have a home game in the Can-I-be-bothered Cup against a Wigan team that probably see themselves as far too grand for such a competition. All in all the next few weeks could be more than a little rosy.
But here's the thing. I just don't care so much any more. I think a lot of Town fans of a certain age think the same way. What's going on at Ipswich at present seems, well if not a little odd - certainly somewhat pointless. All of seven games into the season and Magilton has begged two players who aren't even ours to make up the numbers - which together with a hotchpotch of signings makes for an overblown squad and a pretty unfamiliar team.
Unfamiliarity is probably half the problem. The team, such as it is needs bedding down, to see if they can form a cohesive unit. Does Magilton have the nous or patience to develop a settled team? Time will tell - but I for one won't be holding my breath.
The funny thing is, in an era when most teams no longer try in the cup competitions, it will be ironic if Town actually stir themselves on Wednesday by going on a cup run. Hey, let's face it by winning two cup matches we are already on a roll that has rarely been equalled in recent years.
Some fans might yearn or the overpriced, overblown mediocrity of the premier league... but looking back it's the cups that have provided most of the good memories. It's surely a sign of the times that a semi-motivated Wigan team might hold the key to our season and Magilton;s future. Almost by accident, after a less than auspicious start to the season, Jim Magilton finds himself on the threshold of something. Will it be something, good, bad or ugly? Who cares - as long as our invisible owner gets his fistful of dollars.
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