Ipswich Town and the great Premier League survival bet
Have the Tractor Boys gambled the farm on their top-flight status?
Despite the first-half sending off of defender Axel Tuanzebe, Kieran McKenna’s Ipswich Town took the lead against Aston Villa and limited their opponents to a draw for the second time since promotion to the Premier League.
Ipswich stopped the rot at Villa Park but their form before that left plenty to be desired. Before drawing with Villa, they’d lost four in a row in the league and collected just one point this side of New Year’s Day. Even now, they’ve won two and drawn two in the whole of December, January and February. That’s eight losses in twelve.
There are many ways to handle promotion to English football’s top division. Some teams win their place in the Premier League and try to keep it, investing massive amounts of money in their squads. Others almost accept relegation, keeping their financial powder dry with the aim of going again the season after next.
Neither of those sets of routes is inherently better than the other. It’s a matter of detail and circumstance for the clubs in question and most people on the outside don’t know enough to make a judgement.
But breaking the bank comes with risk. Spend big and fail, and relegation could be just the beginning of bigger problems. Spending survival money and not surviving presents a danger few clubs can ride out without a lasting impact.
Ipswich don’t give off the stench of a club committing a huge outlay in an attempt to maintain their Premier League place but, somewhat quietly, that’s exactly what they’ve done.
It’s to be admired, really. It should never be the sporting aim of any promoted team to accept relegation and the clubs who take it on the chin are doing what’s necessary for their futures but revealing something about the Premier League that most supporters don’t want to think about.
It’s no criticism, therefore, to acknowledge that Ipswich came out of last summer having spent a reported £106.5 million on transfer fees to provide the weapons McKenna required to tackle the top division.
In January, they added another big-money signing in the form of Jaden Philogene for a reported fee in the region of £23 million. Goalkeeper Alex Palmer moved from West Bromwich Albion for a few million. Ben Godfrey and Julio Enciso joined on loan.
It’s a modest investment in the grand scheme of things but it’s enough to put the Tractor Boys firmly in the category of clubs who have committed serious money towards their bet on Premier League survival.
McKenna and Ipswich couldn’t have asked for a tougher start and lost their first two games of the season against Liverpool and Manchester City, but draws against Fulham, Brighton & Hove Albion, Southampton and Villa followed.
That remains their longest unbeaten run of the season and it was enough to separate Ipswich – not in the table as much as the sense of what the teams are and what they’re going to be – from Southampton, Wolverhampton Wanderers and Leicester City.
Ipswich seemed to have more about them. All three changed managers with limited immediate improvement between them. Only Wolves are showing signs of life.
Ipswich’s failing form
A slight upturn in Wolves’ fortunes and more emphatic surges for Everton and Crystal Palace confirmed that Ipswich’s early-season ability to pick up points would not be enough. Wins are needed too and they’ve been few and far between.
Far from turning draws into wins, the autumn and winter have brought about a long and worrying list of losses.
Since drawing with Manchester United, Ipswich have twice lost three or more games in a row. They’ve been beaten heavily by Liverpool and Manchester City again but also by Palace and Southampton, both at Portman Road.
At the time of writing, they’re two points behind Wolves and in the relegation zone with Leicester and a Southampton side who would still have only six points had they not claimed their second win of the season against Ipswich at the start of February.
Ipswich pass the eye test in a lot of regards. They’re not a bad team, for the most part, and the draw at Villa Park in their last game showed that their resilience has not been broken by their difficult spell.
But their league position is their league position. Ipswich have lost fewer games than the rest of the bottom four but only Southampton have won fewer. Whether or not they can weather the hit to the books, they’ve spent too much money for that to be enough.
Ipswich Town’s underlying statistics
It doesn’t take much more depth than the league table to know that Ipswich don’t do many things especially well compared to the rest of the Premier League but McKenna will also be aware that his team are neither unlucky nor overdue a better run.
They’ve won the fewest points of any team since the turn of the year and rank in the bottom three for a large number of indicative performance measures as defined by Fbref.
Ipswich are 19th in the home table with one win against Chelsea to show for twelve fixtures. Only Southampton have a worse overall home record and the two teams have scored the joint-lowest number of goals at home.
The Saints are the only team with a lower total number of goals than Ipswich, who have scored fewer goals from open play this season than any other team in the Premier League.
There’s no imminent upswing. Ipswich have the lowest expected goals value in the Premier League for the season so far both with (xG) and without penalties (npxG). They’re under-performing both of them.
With a second-highest expected goals against (xGA) – 50.3 is higher than two goals per game and is lower than only you-know-who – Ipswich also join Southampton in the bottom two for expected goal difference. This is not an association between two clubs that bodes well for the Suffolk side.
As well as scoring slightly fewer than expected, Ipswich are conceding slightly more than expected. Palmer’s acquisition should improve that, at least, but the overarching point is that any convergence on what’s expected won’t help Ipswich’s fortunes at all.
They invested a reported minimum of £15 million in striker Liam Delap, whose goals against Villa alone this season showed his capabilities. He’s scored ten Premier League goals this season and has been involved in more than half of those scored by the entire team.
Delap’s scoring beyond his xG and it’s just as well. He isn’t just their teeth – he’s their gums, lips, tongue and tonsils too.
No team in the league averages lower possession and Ipswich have the fewest touches in the attacking third and the opposition penalty area.
They have the league’s lowest average shots per 90 minutes, fewest progresses passes, fewest passes into the penalty area and final third, and fewest passes leading to a shot.
There are alarm bells ringing without the ball too. Ipswich have the lowest average tackle success rate and the second-highest number of tackles lost. Only Leicester have conceded more goals from open play, and Ipswich’s open-play concessions at home are lower even than them.
Can McKenna get Ipswich out of trouble?
If Ipswich’s first couple of games back in the Premier League were difficult, consider what lies ahead in their last third of the season.
Old Trafford, Stamford Bridge, the Vitality Stadium and St James’ Park await. Tottenham Hotspur, Nottingham Forest and Arsenal will visit Portman Road and Ipswich’s final 13 games also include some crunch matches that they simply must not lose.
In April, Ipswich have a home game against Wolves. In May, they go to Leicester. It goes without saying that there’s every chance those are make or break fixtures for the Tractor Boys’ survival hopes.
Leicester and Wolves meet in April, one week before the Foxes have the chance to convert the Premier League’s ultimate 2024/25 tap-in: Southampton at home. Wolves go to St Mary’s in the middle of March and have already played Liverpool, Arsenal and Forest twice.
The Tractor Boys have their work cut out. They’re having the kind of season one might expect from a promoted side but they’re doing it at a significant financial premium.
Unfortunately, they didn’t have much choice. This is the Premier League now. It costs newly promoted teams north of £100 million to aim for 17th and even then it only takes David Moyes going back to the Everton job to drop you right into the shit.
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