93 points, and the rest of the division looking up. Every side that finishes first spends the season pretending it is not thinking about it, and this one has started pretending.
Marcelino Núñez was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Squad24 May 2027
Words at Ipswich Town training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Julio Enciso is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Ipswich Town, and both men came out saying it was fine.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Jaden Philogene signs something — a contract at Ipswich Town or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
It is not a grievance and it is not a demand: he wants to play continental football, and he has stopped hiding it. Whether Ipswich Town can give him that is a question about the club, not about him.
“Some mornings you wake up and you are still a long way from everything you know.” It is not the football and it never was; Ipswich Town are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
At 21 he is doing things this season that he could not do last season, and doing them every week. Form comes and goes; this has stayed long enough to be called something else.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Julio Enciso was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 23-year-old it feels ownership of. Julio Enciso has it now, and everything he does for the rest of his time here will be measured against the goodwill he was handed for free.
A performance of 8.24 does not come along often, and when it does the rest of the team becomes scenery. He was magnificent.
Player ratings5 Apr 2027
Jack Clarke was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.21. There are performances a supporter describes to somebody who was not there and cannot quite convey; this was one, and the number does not help either.
Two goals and a mark of 8.90 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
A deal that was a phone call from completion at lunchtime was dead by midnight. Ipswich Town will try again when the window opens; Preston may not be selling by then.
Squad8 Feb 2027
Words at Ipswich Town training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Julio Enciso is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
15 clean sheets from 32 appearances at Barnsley. That is the whole of a goalkeeper’s job done properly, and it is being done a long way from the club that owns him.
20 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Ipswich Town lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Ipswich Town can pretend not to have heard.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Ipswich Town will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Ipswich Town have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
12 without defeat on their own grass. The pitch has not changed; the crowd has — louder earlier, and quicker to sense when the opposition would rather be somewhere else.
It is not a grievance and it is not a demand: he wants to play continental football, and he has stopped hiding it. Whether Ipswich Town can give him that is a question about the club, not about him.
Marcelino Núñez was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
16 goals in 22 games at Derby County — numbers that travel home faster than he does. Somebody at Ipswich Town updates a spreadsheet every Monday, and it makes better reading each week.
In brief
SquadWords at Ipswich Town training over how hard people work
The dugoutThe manager makes an example of Jack Clarke
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Ipswich Town will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
Two goals and a mark of 8.64 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
“I have ambitions, and I would like the club to share them.” Nobody has asked to leave and nobody has been shown the door — but a player chooses that sentence carefully, and a boardroom hears it exactly as it was meant.
Marcelino Núñez and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Jack Clarke wants continental football; whether Ipswich Town can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
Squad7 Dec 2026
Julio Enciso falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Ipswich Town will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Julio Enciso was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
14 appearances at Derby County and the goals keep coming. Ipswich Town are watching this more closely than the borrowing club would like.
The dugout16 Nov 2026
The manager has not finished forgetting Alex Palmer's mistake
Publicly it is behind everybody. It is not behind the man who picks the team, and the only place that shows is a team sheet. He will get another chance; he will get it in a match that matters less.
7 shut-outs in 14 games. A goalkeeper’s loan is judged on the afternoons when nothing happened at all, and Cieran Slicker has been having a lot of them.
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Kasey McAteer is on it.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Saša Lukić signs something — a contract at Ipswich Town or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Ipswich Town will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
“I have given this everything, but my family is not here and neither am I, not really.” A footballer can be coached out of bad form. Nobody has ever been coached out of this, and Ipswich Town know it.
It is not a grievance and it is not a demand: he wants to play continental football, and he has stopped hiding it. Whether Ipswich Town can give him that is a question about the club, not about him.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Julio Enciso was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Marked 8.03 — the sort of number a correspondent writes down twice to be sure. Everything he tried came off, and what he did not try was not worth trying.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Ipswich Town will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
200 games in this shirt, through managers and relegations and everything else. Service like it is disappearing from the game and the crowd knows what it is watching.
There is no complaint available here and everybody involved knows it, which does not make the walk to the bench any shorter. Form is the only currency in football that cannot be borrowed against.
“The players deserve the credit. My job was easy today.” It was not, and everybody in the room knew it; after 1‑0, Luke Hughes could afford to be generous.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Ipswich Town will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
The number the board signed off was not enough. It has been asked again and raised its own offer to $7.5M — a club that wants Róbert Boženík enough to be asked twice.
Florentino Luís was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
“I have ambitions, and I would like the club to share them.” Nobody has asked to leave and nobody has been shown the door — but a player chooses that sentence carefully, and a boardroom hears it exactly as it was meant.
48 months to run and not a word offered. A club that lets the calendar negotiate for it usually ends up losing to the calendar.
Squad10 Aug 2026
10 new faces, and Ipswich Town are still learning each other
A squad rebuilt inside one window pays for it in a currency nobody budgets for. The football is not worse than the sum of the players; it is worse than the sum of the players who have played together before.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Ipswich Town, and both men came out saying it was fine.