If there was one thing that summed up Ipswich Town’s Championship promotion in the 2023/24 season, it was late goals.
Jeremy Sarmiento only spent a season on loan at Portman Road and yet he achieved cult hero status when he scored a 97th-minute toe poke to turn 2-1 defeat against Southampton to a 3-2 win. Games against Birmingham, Bristol City and Blackburn were all decided in the dying embers during the promotion run-in.
It gave Ipswich an aura of invincibility and fans of their promotion rivals a sense of inevitability. The Suffolk club would win 32 points from losing positions, a league high. That desire, and fortune, was what powered a League One club to the Premier League against opposition with far deeper pockets and had everyone believing there was a higher power backing their promotion push.
That ability to be down but not out did an almost perfect 180 once the club was back in the Premier League. In their first top-flight campaign in 20 years, Ipswich led 15 games and won just four; only Southampton had a worse record.
History says 22 points and a 19th-place finish, context would show that especially in the first half of the season, Ipswich were competitive in a lot of games and lost it by small margins.
So when Ipswich won promotion back to the Premier League last season, that was the big question facing the fans. Ipswich have not survived a Premier League season since 2001 so can this team turn well-fought competitions into wins? The answer after six games is yes.
Ipswich’s 2-1 victory against Fulham, in which they were trailing as late as the 87th minute, was a hark back to that promotion-winning season. A stunning effort from Abdoul Ouattara breached the Fulham defence and Ipswich fans were as confident of a winner as Fulham fans were of losing.
Of Ipswich’s three wins this season, two have come when the club were trailing. Only Arsenal and Crystal Palace have clawed back as many points as Ipswich from losing points so far this season.
And the result against Fulham is exactly the kind that would not have gone Ipswich’s way two seasons ago. But getting to that situation was not luck.
Cross the Essex to Suffolk border and you will be hard-pressed to find anyone who does not see Kieran McKenna as a hero; the fact he still lives 30 minutes from Portman Road is a reflection of the adulation he is held in round those parts, and yet, Gary O’Neil is undoubtedly a more pragmatic coach.
Under the former Wolves and Bournemouth boss, Ipswich have been comfortable with suffering. Fulham had more possession and created more xG in Saturday’s match. In Ipswich’s opening game, a 2-1 win against Sunderland, the Black Cats had 62% of the ball to Ipswich’s 38%.
Only against Crystal Palace, in which the London side received a red card, have Ipswich had more possession than their opponent.
Ipswich under O’Neil are far more comfortable with being uncomfortable than they were the first time around.
The players are a huge part of that. The back-to-back promotion-winning triumph earned that original squad a chance at the Premier League but it was a team lacking in experience in the top flight.
The transfers ahead of that season fit neatly into the ‘could be good in the Premier League but will be great in the Championship if we go down’ category. Liam Delap and Omari Hutchinson were young top six prospects that could be great. Jacob Greaves was an up-and-coming defender who had done well with Hull in the Championship.
Ipswich’s recruitment drive this summer, which was a record spent by a promoted side, had a different focus – signing already Premier League established players.
The Ipswich line-up that stood on the Portman Road pitch for the opening game against Liverpool in 2024/25 had a combined 33 Premier League appearances between them, of which 28 came from Axel Tuanzebe. The starting XI against Fulham had 560.
It is hard to quantify exactly what Premier League experience brings on a pitch. It is not as easy as saying it leads to more shots or more tackles or more possession, for it is far more nuanced than that. Perhaps the clearest benefit is a knowledge of what to do in critical situations.
Sasa Lukic, a man two shy of 100 Premier League appearances, made 13 defensive contributions in the game. He also had 85 touches, the second most of any player on the pitch, and was always an option for an outball when Ipswich were under pressure.
Issa Diop, signed in the summer and 21 short of 200 Premier League appearances, made the most passes of any player and the second most headed clearances. It is that kind of performance that allows a team to survive under pressure.
Yet more than this, those players allow the others not to panic. When Ipswich went a goal behind two years ago, it often felt like the collective weight of expectation crushed the inexperienced players. This time around, going a goal down feels like merely a speed bump rather than a full crash into a tree.
While Ipswich’s transfer business brought in a far higher quality starting XI, it also gave the club something it severely lacked last time round: strength in depth.
When Delap needed substituting, he was replaced by George Hirst who had never played in the Premier League. On Saturday, Emersonn, a £24m signing, was replaced by a player who scored 11 goals in a relegated Burnley side. Midfielder Florentino was subbed just after the hour mark for a World Cup winner.
Even in the games they have lost, there has been cause for encouragement. They went down 2-0 early to Liverpool and looked in danger of a battering but regrouped to keep the scoreline to just two. The loss to Everton was decided by a single goal.
MORE ON F365
* 16 Conclusions from Manchester United 1-1 Spurs: Carrick sack, De Zerbi, Fernandes no-show, Savio
* Why the Premier League needs spinning top Chelsea and Jordan Hendiesta right now
* Arsenal bewildered then brilliant to beat Leeds and go level in phoney title race
The 5-2 hammering away at Manchester United was the only example of a crumble and even then the scores were level until the 56th minute.
When you compare the squads between the three promoted sides, Ipswich’s has clearly the most quality and while Hull’s early scalps built on impressive coaching from Sergej Jakirovic, Ipswich’s squad and tactics look far more likely to achieve sustainable longer-term success.
Ipswich’s rise has not been by accident. Ever since American investment fund ORG took over the club in 2021 via their company Gamechanger 20, there has been a plan to become a mainstay in the Premier League.
That company bought Ipswich for £40m, they have injected £132m in the five years since and this week the club unveiled a £30m state-of-the-art training ground that the players have been occupying since the start of the season, replacing buildings that had housed the team that played in the Premier League in the early 2000s.
Quietly, Ipswich have found themselves up into 10th already, six points clear of the drop zone. The club won just four games last time round; they are already three-quarters of the way to matching that tally.
As the one promoted side who had been in the Premier League in recent years, Ipswich’s story was the least eye-catching of the trio, but Fulham themselves can tell you what can be achieved when you fly under the radar.
READ NEXT: Leeds United chairman taking us for mugs with dynamic pricing b*llocks
