Promotion Hopes

You were appointed as Ipswich manager in January – the third time you had come into a job mid-season. How difficult is it to hit the ground running in that situation?

It is difficult. All the jobs have been different. Bradford City came completely out of the blue. I was a player-coach there when Chris Kamara departed. I was just asked to take over for the next game really. Luckily enough, we managed to win it and the rest, as they say,  is history.

At Derby County I tried to change everything overnight, and I think with a bit more experience I might have calmed down a bit and thought for a bit longer before making big decisions.

With Ipswich, I spoke to Marcus Evans, the owner, about his plans for the future and it really got me excited. The team had just beaten Arsenal in the first leg of their Carling Cup semi-final, yet in the league it looked as though a relegation fight was on the cards. But all credit to the players, they dug themselves out of that and we finished comfortably in mid-table the end.

Ipswich have a great reputation for their youth policy and development of young talent. That must be encouraging ?

Ipswich have got a fantastic academy, but you can’t keep rolling out top-class players year after year. That just doesn’t happen. A lot has been said about our young star Connor Wickham, but unless an offer comes in that is mind-blowing and the player wants to go, I am very happy to see him progress at Ipswich. He is only just 18, so I am in no rush to sell him.

But it’s swings and roundabouts as a manager. For as many youngsters you bring through you also lose top-quality players for nothing because they are at the end of their contracts. We’ve learned a hard lesson at the club, namely that you have to start renegotiating contracts earlier than we have been. We shouldn’t be letting the contracts of top players run down.

Next season will be your first full season; what targets have you and the club set?

Our targets are probably the same as 15 or 16 other teams in the Championship, to try to have a chance of getting in the promotion shake-up. It is probably going to be the toughest league it has been for a while. West Ham United have just come down, and they are a top club. Brighton & Hove Albion have just come up and they are moving into a new stadium. Southampton are a big club.

All those coming up or going down are good teams. There are already an awful lot of sides in the Championship who are of similar ability. As long as we can progress and try to be somewhere near that top six, we’ll be happy.

You masterminded promotion out of the Championship previously with both Wigan Athletic and Bradford City. How confident are you that you can repeat that feat with Ipswich?

Ipswich have the potential to be a Premier League team - there is no doubt about that. They have a terrific ground, a good owner, fantastic facilities and great support. It’s my job to get the right players on the pitch, and to get them winning matches. It sounds really simple when I say it like that!

At Wigan we didn’t have a great training ground or the biggest support in the world, but we had a hard working team that was very difficult to play against. If we can get that type of spirit on the pitch added to all of that stuff on the outside then we have got to be in with a chance.