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And that is that. After defeat to Wolves on Saturday, Kieran McKenna – who had been positive in his pre-match interviews – conceded that Ipswich Town are heading back to the Championship with seven league games remaining. For all the pre-season optimism and transfer market endeavour, things have mostly gone wrong since.
It is fitting that this rather limp attempt at survival ended at Portman Road. It is true that Ipswich also rank in the bottom three for away league performance, but bar a stirring home victory over Chelsea in late December, McKenna’s team have been wretched at home. They are not alone – see Leicester City under Ruud van Nistelrooy. The home form of the promoted clubs has decreed that there will be no relegation fight in May.
It is particularly disappointing for Ipswich because they seemed to have so many of the ingredients to be better than this. They beat Chelsea with front-foot, high-energy football. They drew against Aston Villa and Fulham at home with roughly the same strategy.
But it is Ipswich’s results against the non-elite sides in the league at home, the fixtures from which they should have taken the bulk of their points, that has crippled their chances of staying up. In nine home games against teams currently outside the top six, Ipswich have secured two measly points (Manchester United and Fulham, both 1-1 draws).
That record of 0.2 points per game unsurprisingly compares unfavourably to everybody else in the league, but it’s way below even Leicester (0.9 points per game) and Southampton (0.42 points per game). If you’re twice as bad as Southampton at anything this season, you deserve to go down.
This is an extract of The Score. Sign-up up here to receive the newsletter every Monday morning with Daniel Storey’s verdict on all 20 Premier League clubs