Ipswich Town captain Sam Morsy has been reflecting on the Blues’ promotion and what lies ahead, during an interview with TalkSport this week.
Morsy on... Town winning promotion
“It’s been great and a long time coming for the club. The players loved it and the fans loved it. It’s been absolutely incredible.
“The expectation was promotion, and automatic promotion, so when you veer off slightly from that you definitely feel it.
“We’ve been pretty consistent throughout the whole season but there was a spell where our rivals were just in incredible form and we ended up drawing a couple consecutively, so it almost looked like it was going to be play-offs to be honest.
“So, within that and with my responsibility (as captain), I definitely felt I needed to try my best to galvanise us because nothing less than automatic promotion would have been enough, really. Play-offs, yeah, but that’s a lottery.
“It’s been a challenging season but we’ve always remained calm and stayed together as a group and we have managed to do it.”
Morsy on... the Ipswich Town fans
“It’s frightening.
“I signed for Ipswich from another massive club in Middlesbrough, but as soon as I signed for Ipswich you could see the ambition. The fans we get at home and away and the support from the area is incredible.
“I remember at last season’s awards dinner, we had finished mid-table but the fans were emotional and were saying they’d got their club back. The support has been absolutely phenomenal and the fans really believe in us – they took to us straight away, they love the players and love the staff.
“You can feel all of that as a player and this is just the start, really. As players we’re part of the journey and we know the club has great, historic, success and now we are on that journey, writing our names into the history books and hopefully helping the club go even higher.”
Morsy on... handling emotions
“In the lead-up my family and friends were sending me messages saying ‘this is planned for before and there are going to be thousands of people’ and I was just thinking ‘we need to win the game’. If we didn’t, it would go down to the final day.
“That was a little tough. I had to ask my family and friends to stop sending me things and I stayed off social media a little bit. I would enjoy it on the day but there was a job to do, ultimately.
“The lads were really, really professional. We had won 12 out of 13 and we were in a calm place and knew what we are about as a team. We’re an intense team and pressure teams, but need that calmness as well. I was consciously trying to make myself calm and transfer that energy into the guys because we knew we’d only lost once at home all season and scored an incredible amount of goals.
“We started great, scored early and then from then on it was a great day.”
Morsy on... the importance of winning the title and reaching 100 points and 100 goals
“The position we’re in now, not so long ago it was looking like the play-offs.
“We were 10 and eight points behind the top two, so to do what we’ve done, and get over the line, definitely feels like we have accomplished our goals.
“But, saying that, the players and the management and ownership will all demand nothing less than 100% at Fleetwood to try and win the game.
“It’s not in our hands but all we can do is our best. We trained really hard this week, really hard, and if there’s one thing about this manager it’s that the sessions are really tough and there’s no let off.
“The manager wanted us to enjoy it (celebrating promotion) because it’s even more sweet because of the way we did it. Everyone wrote us off. There were even people saying we weren’t going to finish in the play-offs because it got that tight.
“But there has to be a level of professionalism, which is what the manager demands. He wouldn’t tolerate going into this game half-hearted, especially given how many fans we have traveling up and down the country.
“It’s really important we give the best account of ourselves.”
Morsy on... the prospect of facing Norwich
“I’m buzzing for that.
“As soon as you sign, that’s what the people want to tell you and they’re saying ‘this is who we want to catch’ and ‘this is who we want to be better than’.
“So as soon as we were promoted the fans were looking to that. It will be an amazing one to enjoy.
“The fans feels like they have their club back and we want to embrace them all.”
Morsy on... next season and manager Kieran McKenna
“We haven’t spoken about it yet but you always look at history.
“Look at Sunderland this season, who added really well and can make the play-offs.
“We know that with the new ownership we are going to strengthen heavily and the manager’s ceiling is very hard to tell. This was his first full season in management and he’s done absolutely incredible.
“He’s such a good guy and such a good manager. He gets the game and is so detailed. His attention to detail is incredible and he watches and analyses so much.
“One of the best characteristics in my opinion, which is one Neil Warnock had as well, is that when you do have a set-back he doesn’t dwell on it too often. That’s really hard to do but he has the right temperament of always trying to improve but not dwelling on the negatives.
“It wouldn’t surprise me if he ended up anywhere eventually – he's really that good.”
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