Don’t panic, Captain Mainwaring. In a 46-game season, we will lose matches. It’s inevitable.

Look at last season in League One. Champions Wigan lost eight times, and promoted Rotherham tasted defeat no fewer than ten times. Being beaten every five or six games isn’t a promotion showstopper.

Of course Saturday’s defeat to Lincoln hurts. For a start, we’re not accustomed to losing at fortress Portman Road. It was only our second home league defeat this year. The other loss In 2022 so far was the frustrating 1-0 defeat to Cambridge.

The manner of the defeat to the Imps was also painful. We had all the possession, loads of shots, but we lacked two things - clinical finishing and a little bit of luck. Fair play to the visitors. They did their jobs very well. But they also got the rub of the green.

So, what I’m saying is there’s absolutely no cause to over-react to a single defeat. It’s what happens next that matters most.

We have an ideal, and early, chance to bounce back on Friday evening when Derby visit in front of the TV cameras (please don’t mention the words telly and hoodoo).

It will be one of those games we are more accustomed to watching rather higher up the football league ladder. Like us, the Rams are a so-called “big club” operating in rather reduced circumstances for reasons which have been very well publicised.

There will be another big crowd, no doubt, and a very special atmosphere under the lights. If we win - which we should - then we can look back at the Lincoln game as a mere bump in a very long road.

Having said all that, we do have to look at Saturday’s defeat with a bit more of an analytical eye. The way we lost, with all that possession and all those shots on goal, brings me back to a sadly recurring theme this season: Our lack of a clinical finisher.

Yes, it’s fine to get goals from other players. Conor Chaplin and Marcus Harness will almost certainly end up with double figures in terms of their goal tally. Wes Burns too, probably.

That’s all well and good. But it doesn’t make up for the lack of a striker who’s going to get us somewhere between 15 and 20 goals. We just don’t have one at the club.

Players like Freddie Ladapo, Tyreece John-Jules and Kayden Jackson all have their attributes, certainly, but none of them are the fox-in-the-box type player we are crying out for.

If I was Kieran McKenna, I would be making the case right now for spending big money (in League One terms) on a striker the moment the transfer window opens in January. The arrival of that player could well be the difference between play-offs and automatic promotion this season.

Talking of our young, highly-rated manager, I have to admit to a wry smile every time there’s a panic when a managerial job becomes vacant. It happened again when West Brom became the latest club to sack Steve Bruce.

Immediately, some Town fans start putting two and two together and coming up with five. Read my lips - Kieran McKenna will be at Ipswich Town for the foreseeable future.



Why would he throw away the promising career he’s building so impressively to join a club like West Brom, where he knows he would be out after a few months if things weren’t working out instantly? What would happen to his career then?

No, McKenna is too shrewd for that. He has a project at Ipswich which he believes in passionately. He will stay and see it through. He has brought his family to Ipswich, and settled them here. He’s not living out of a suitcase with his family elsewhere in the country. That’s important.

For me, success means (obviously) getting Ipswich out of League One, establishing them back in the Championship, and seeing them push for the play-offs. Then, and only then, do I think he would consider offers. But they would have to be from absolutely the right kind of club. Not the ones who change their managers as often as most people change their socks.


In McKenna we trust. We’ve got a good one here, in every imaginable way.

So bring on Derby on Friday night. We’ll be the ones wearing the black shirts, by the way. Not sure about that....anyway, let’s get back on that promotion track.