636: Kings of Anglia: Gary O’Neil named Town boss - our thoughts on his first press conference

0:09Hello everybody, it's me Roscoe and welcome to the Gary O 'Neil era at Itchwich Town. Welcome to the Kings of Anglia podcast. It's me Roscoe in the hot seat, AJ as well. We're live on the YouTubes and the Facebooks, but if you're listening post live show, I hope you're doing well on this sunny, hot day in England in general and in Suffolk. AJ, of course, is in Cambridgeshire. My friend come in. We're going to be discussing Gary O 'Neill as a whole. He's not unveiled yesterday, which was not a shock.

0:39Ross Halls:Although there was a moment in me where I was like, what if out of nowhere, Mark Ashton just comes in with a different manager? It was Oli or just someone random. You're like, oh. But no, Gary O 'Neill is the Newwich Town manager signing a three-year deal from Stragsborg. AJ, how are you? Yeah, I'm good, thanks. I think there were a lot of fans who felt the same way about it being, is it going to be a totally left-field pick? Obviously, we had the understanding that this one was going to happen last Friday. We put the news out, it was reported widely, the Athletic, a lot of Nationals, obviously picking that one up as well.

1:16and it was clear that personal terms and that approach to Blue Co were going to happen over the weekend. Monday was just a case of crossing the I's and dotting the T's. There was a bit of that going into Tuesday, which is why it was such a late announcement. But these things aren't easy. There's a lot of contract and legal bits that need to be sorted out, both with Blue Co, and that involves communicating with those over in France and also just things with liaising with the Premier League, with the FA and stuff like that. so that they're difficult things to get sorted. It got done. And now we can look forward.

1:50We can look forward to the rest of this week, and that's going to be hot. I promise we won't talk about the weather. I feel like I look very shiny at the moment. I'm very red on this, which also might be because I've shut the – I have shutters in my room, and I've closed them to try and keep this place as cool as possible. I've got my quiet little fan running on the side. But, yes, all good and excited to talk through some Gary O 'Neill stuff today.

2:14Ross Halls:Definitely my friend. And thanks everyone for joining us live. As it stands, let us know your thoughts, your feelings, your comments in the comments down below. And I will share your feelings on the screen. And yeah, it was lovely being in a very air-conditioned Portman Road yesterday for the press conference. We're sort of on standby until the club, of course, announced it. And then we went right into the press conference with Gary O 'Neill. AJ, it was a bit too last minute for you to come along. So it's just me and Stu. but I just want to get your first impressions from watching his press conference.

2:47Of course, you've been doing a lot of in-depth looking at his career as a whole and you can watch interviews, Monday Night Football and interviews at these other clubs. But yeah, your first impressions from his press conference at Portman Road. Yeah, I mean, for starters, it was a slightly odd set-up, wasn't it? We knew there was going to be a press conference. I didn't think there was going to be one about five minutes after he signed and then the way that, as I just get a spam call on my phone, the way that it was kind of announced was a little bit kind of not out of the blue because we knew it was going to happen and everything got put out.

3:23I think the BBC said there was going to be a press conference and things like that. But I guess it built up the anticipation. We covered it, got covered well, got put on town TV, things like that. And people got to have a proper insight into Gary O 'Neill. And it was interesting hearing him talk about I think the things that stood out to me, what it means to manage Ipswich, his previous experiences, and then kind of looking ahead to what that's going to be like in the Premier League. Those are the three biggest things for me. I think that on the first one, he seems to have this real understanding, and that is important.

3:59And I know you can kind of talk the talk with that, but it's something that he was big on. It's something that Mark Ashton was big on and kind of came in quite firm on things like representing the club, being the face of the club, dealing with the community, understanding what, not Apswich is necessarily as a club, because there is that, but also as a town, what it means within Suffolk and things like that. And he seemed to really get that aspect, which I thought was really good. I like the way that he spoke about his previous experiences and what he's learned from that, the Bournemouth job, how he was thrown in that first summer.

4:36And he came in, his first game was, sorry, the last game of Scott Parker's. There was a 9-0 defeat to Liverpool. And he came in and the first thing he did was he built from the back and built his way up. So what he did was he kind of really made the solid defence there and they drew 0-0 in their first game against Wolves. I think fans loved that because it was just about getting back to basics and talking about that, talking about the difficulties that he had with the fact that they were in the midst of a takeover and they couldn't really go and sign players. and they still went on to survive quite comfortably in that season.

5:07And looking at Wolves, again, the difficulties that he faced there, all of the best players being sold, but getting to kind of evolve some of his tactical ideas and then the experience as well of going to France and managing in Strasbourg and getting a different experience, a different culture, working with a different kind of player and getting to work with a different kind of level of squad. It was one of the strongest squads in the league and getting to be a bit more possession-based and do what he really likes to do and coach that side of the game. So it's interesting seeing that. and then seeing how that transfers into his plans for the future as well.

5:37And Stu asked him, you know, can you give us an insight into the tactics? And he said a bit of what I think we already know from research. It's a bit of a 4-2-3-1 at times. It can be a 4-4-2. It can be a 3-4-2-1. He's really flexible and adaptable, but he doesn't want to give too much more away from that. He wants to try and play an attacking style and do that kind of approach. I can hear your doorbell going, Ross. That's what he wants. It's not my doorbell. I think my neighbour's kid playing with a bell or something. Fair enough. It's that kind of weather. Yeah, so we've seen what he kind of wants to coach, but he's also pragmatic enough to understand, and he referenced this, at some point we're going to have to go to the Etihad and we're not going to be taking the game to them necessarily and trying to dominate possession and win the game that way.

6:25So, yeah, a mix of pragmatism in terms of his approach, but also a feeling that he's going to have a group that can play. will want to play and will have opportunities to do that. So those are the three key takeaways for me. And I'm interested to see what that's going to look like. Definitely, my friend. Yeah, he dressed the part of Dardini. He looked very, very good. Nice teeth. Smelled nice, by the way.

6:49Ross Halls:Just a little takeaway from me. Obviously, dressed very sharp. I felt very underdressed. There's good old Hutchie of KOA fame, former of KOA. And he was in a full suit. School uniform. Yeah, yeah. When he greeted me in the reception or outside, and I was like, oh, a bit undidressed. He was like, are you going to the beach or something? And I went, no. I've had that. I've had that before. I feel like I can probably tell this story. Quite early on in my KOA days, we went to go and have a chat with Mark Ashton. It was me, Mark, and Stu, just to talk about things we were planning to do and the coverage of the club had an understanding, that kind of stuff.

7:25We went to have a meeting, and it was really hot. It was like 33, 34. and Stu and Mark, Stu in particular, turned up looking a bit James Bond. It was like the white shirt, sleeves rolled up a bit, black kind of like suit trousers. I think I turned up in like slightly tracksuit looking shorts because it was that hot on like a white Uniqlo T-shirt. And there's a photo of us. We got to have a look in the town TV studio and I look so brutally out of place. It is painful. But yeah, don't worry. Don't worry, Ross. Yeah, it happens to the best of us. there's a few people wearing shorts so I wasn't like if I was the only one wearing shorts at that press conference I would have been a bit worried but there was a few others so I was fine and yeah

8:09Ross Halls:I think I could have filled hand for those a day I think he was in shorts but yeah anywho no not in the press conference room but it was lovely air conditions do you know what I may speak to the club and just say can we just work at Portland Road over the summer because it's obviously lovely in there but yes I'm just going to bring up some sort of comments and questions as well. Good to see viewers from all over the place. Got Kim here. Good evening from Sydney. Watching from Sydney. Looking forward to seeing what you can do with the team. Adam Wright went hello to the Young Guns. Happy enough with the appointment.

8:46Ross Halls:He talked the talk. Fingers crossed. Recruitment is good enough, which is going to be a busy summer, AJ. We're going to be doing a lot of transfer talk videos. I can imagine a lot of insight videos on the new signings. I'm looking forward to that. Sean, good afternoon, Roscoe. And Alex from Cape Town in South Africa. I love that. Town fan, good old Sean. Ben Southgate, good old to see you, Ben, as well. Another one in Sydney. I loved his press conference. Yes, he talked a good game, but he seemed genuine and he came across really well. It made me excited, very much so. Because I know there's a lot of town fans out there, a little bit underwhelmed by it.

9:19Ross Halls:Once again, he's taught the talk. He's now got a walk the walk and all that jazz. So we'll see that. AJ, we're going to get into this race shortly. with Adam Wright, without your piece. And he's mentioned, I think, your first choice. So we'll get into that very shortly. But let's talk about the deal as a whole, because there was compensation that was needed. He signed a three-year deal. Of course, his new staff have come in as well. Let us know a little bit of that, just in case people don't know. But yeah, conversation, which I don't think has happened that often in Towns history, because I think Paul Hurst, we must have given Shrewsbury a little bit of money, but all the other managers, they're sort of out of a job.

9:58Ross Halls:So, yeah, especially Keir McKenna, though, we probably had to pay a little bit of money to May United at the time because he was coaching there. Everybody else, Paul Cook was out of a job. Mick McCarthy was out of a job. Paul Jewell, Roy Keane. Anywho, talk about us, the deal as a whole, my friend. Yeah. I mean, this technically, if you go through it, would probably be one of the more expensive transfer deals that Ipswich Town have had in their history, funnily enough. The reported deal, this is coming out from the French end, is that Bluco will receive€5 million. So that comes in at about£4.3 million, which is probably about, for a Premier League manager, to bring in a Premier League manager is probably about mid-level for what you would expect, I would say.

10:50You might have widely understood that Kieran McKenna, for example, has had an£8 million buyout clause, and that will be active if he goes back into management before July 1st next year. So, yes, that is the amount paid, and I think it's another indication of how much Mark Ashton wanted Gary O 'Neill, and I think that it's quite clear that whenever we've spoken to Mark Ashton about succession planning and what comes next with the manager situation, he always has this rolling list, and I think O 'Neill's been on it for quite a while, I'd say before that spell in Strasbourg, always just being aware that if McKenna goes, that they need to move quickly.

11:29So I think that it's clear that O 'Neill's been on that list. And then the coaching situation. So he comes in with a couple of coaches and an analyst, who I think will also do a bit of coaching. So Tim Jenkins is the one who's been with him for a lot of this journey. There's going to be a profile piece coming, a greater depth. I think Shoe's going to be writing that one, looking at all of these guys. and they've got a really interesting background. Tim Jenkins has been with him since Liverpool under-23s, where they were coaching there, followed him to Bournemouth and to basically all of the clubs, and they've formed a really strong relationship.

12:03They were actually at Wolves. They were living together, I think, with Sean Derry and a couple of other staff. They were flat-sharing, which basically sounds like a kind of sitcom situation. They were telling stories of, like, I'd get a knock on the door at 10 o 'clock in my room and they'd come in and talk tactics, that kind of thing. and they built up, as I said, a really strong bond. Tim Jenkins has spoken about during the time at Wolves, he went on holiday with Gary O 'Neill's family. The families know each other very well, wives are good friends, the kids are a similar age. They went on a holiday together and used dinner times to talk through transfers and tactics and stuff when they were at the same holiday resort.

12:37So it's good that there's a strong bond there. In comes Neil Critchley. Town fans might know a bit about Neil Critchley. I can't remember if he's been one that we've come up against in recent times. He might have been. But he had been previous manager of Blackpool twice and also QPR and Hearts recently. That first Blackpool spell was the one where he really impressed the most, I would say, and did really well to keep them in the championship. QPR didn't work out, didn't really work going back to Blackpool. And the Hearts spell was also quite difficult. So he's kind of taken a step back from the managerial route and now comes into a coaching spell.

13:14but as a coach when he was assistant to Stephen Gerrard, Aston Villa, really highly rated. So he comes in as well. And then we're also getting Ed Ames, who's coming in as an analyst and a coach. He's one that I think we know less about, but Gary O 'Neill speaks really highly about Ed Ames and his understanding of the game. And then in terms of the exit, so this is as we understand it at the moment, there's not been any confirmation, I don't think, from Ipswich about this. But the departures that we've had from the coaching staff, Charlie Turnbull and Junior Stanislas are two of them. I was a bit surprised about Stanislas because he's worked with O 'Neill in the past, but it looks like Stanislas will move on.

13:52And set-piece coach Mark Hudson is going to be moving on as well as we see it. And then there's discussions going on about extending or kind of transitioning a couple of other people into different roles. Martin Pert possibly into recruitment, Sean Ioluko as well, and Rene Gilmartin who could end up being the head of goalkeeping still. So expect those three to stay, hopefully, in some sort of way. But departures for Turnbull, Stanislas and Hudson with, as well as O 'Neill mentioned, possibly a couple more faces coming into the backroom staff still. There we go. I've got to get ready to take those snappy snaps of the new coaching staff.

14:27Of course, Gary O 'Neill, I've took some of them already at the press conference,

14:31Ross Halls:but him on the training pitch and in the dugout, it's going to feel really weird. Definitely that first few weeks of pre-season and stuff. But going back to Neil Critchley, I've just quickly got up. Town, unfortunately, did have a great record against us with Blackpool in the 2021 season. 4-1 win Town got up the Bloomfield Road under Paul Lambert. That was a behind-closed-doors game. I remember Kelly Bishop scored like a cracking goal in that game. Did they get promoted that season? Was that the year they won the playoffs? Blackpool? Yeah. I can't quickly get up the league table. Oh, I feel like I've ruined your plans of this.

15:11I remember, I think he was the one who was in charge, wasn't he, when Blackpool got promoted. I was actually at that game when they played Lincoln City, and they built a really strong team then. Yeah, he's had a different array of experiences, as I've said. He's worked in League One, had real success, worked in the Championship, but it's kind of been a bit of a mixed bag, was Gerald's assistant to Aston Villa. So I think it's good that you kind of have someone that's had those experiences that comes in, supports a young manager as well. Yeah, we did a double over-nil Critchley that season and they obviously got promoted.

15:43But yeah, we won 2-0 at Portman Road as well. So yeah, we've got that over-nil Critchley. I'm sure maybe that gets sort of joked a little about. Although I don't think there's any players left at the club who played in those games. I don't think there is. Because that was obviously, very shortly, Paul Cook demolition summer, which is five years this summer, which is mad. Luke Wolford was sort of the last sort of player out of that squad he scored in that 2-0 win at Portman Road but yeah really interesting when you sort of see the coaching staff

16:14Ross Halls:and yeah recruitment's going to be really key it's going to be exciting I'm just going to bring up some more comments and questions Kieran, good old K-Dog, another K-Dog afternoon gents, Trevor Wiz on to be fair my takeaway he mentioned Europe in his press conference and I said that in our takeaways video so yeah going in it was going to take us to Europe hopefully so will News Quest expenses cover that for us Ross hopefully you know we're going to be done pre-season on tour you know to many different countries but that is a whole different ball game but that will be exciting we've got Chris here from Madrid a very hot Madrid love that that will be very hot of course Tano currently well they're going to Spain for a pre-season camp under Gary O 'Neill.

17:03Ross Halls:It'll be interesting to see how many new signings are in the door by that stage. This is from Peter. At first, I was a little underwhelmed, but after hearing him speak, it made me feel better. I think the fact the club is well set up will help him. Yes, once again, he's probably the first town manager in a long, long time that he's got such a great infrastructure and just structured everywhere and backed by really good ownership. So I like that. Sebastian, good first impression from yesterday, a full pre-season and trance window for him. I guess that's a change from his previous roles he had in the Premier League.

17:36Ross Halls:He's hoping to a good start to the season, which is very true, isn't it, AJ? I don't think he had a proper pre-season. Maybe at Wolves, would he have had one, potentially? Yeah, he would have done at Wolves because he took charge of that second half. That second season, which obviously is the one that gets brought up. And there are various reasons for why that didn't work out. And I think that he's probably learned a bit about how he has to be on a personal level in terms of coaching individuals, in terms of managing people. But also it was a group that was very difficult to manage this Ipswich team.

18:09And look, there's going to be probably near enough to half a new dressing room coming in over the summer. Maybe that's a bit dramatic, but maybe about a third, I'd say. This team is different. I think you don't have the same kind of personalities and egos. And I think that the recruitment will be based around avoiding that. But when you look at that Wolves team, I mean, look at Mateus Kenia, for example, and the way that he was enabled to act. And maybe he thinks back to that and should have done better. But ultimately, it was a difficult environment, as was said there, to come into where Wolves were selling all of their best players.

18:41There was a loss of quality that went out the door. And O 'Neill had to deal with that and a fan base that were ready to go for him and go for the players. And the season before that, pardon me, they were good. They played well. and you look at the Bournemouth team, they were a success. They stayed in the division and the reason that he was sacked from Bournemouth wasn't because he kind of hadn't done enough. It was what they needed to do, but just because they wanted to go into a different direction tactically and ultimately the manager who they did appoint, well, he's done all right, I'd say.

19:13Ross Halls:Definitely very much so. A few more comments. Let us know your feelings, everybody, and any other questions you want us to answer. There's actually a question here from Ben, AJ. Were you surprised by the fact we have him as manager and not head coach label, which seems to be the thing these days? That was maybe sort of rumoured we were chatting about that as well, him becoming maybe the first ever head coach at town. But yeah, he's been labelled as manager. Yeah, he has. We needed to kind of go through and double check that one before it was announced. It became clear that he was going to be the manager and kind of follow in the same kind of footsteps.

19:48And obviously that is a job that encompasses a lot because you're dealing with so many different sides of the game. but I think that you kind of have to take on a lot of those aspects as Ipswich manager. I think it's important to have that. Personally, look, there might be a time where a head coach comes in at Ipswich and in that kind of role, but then I think there would need to be a little bit of restructuring, and we spoke a little bit about this on one of the previous pods. I think you might turn towards a director of football, for example, that you need to bring in as well to work with them and see maybe what Ashton's roles would be like going forward.

20:23he's currently got two roles which can't be easy for him to juggle but is clearly doing it well so yeah I'm not surprised necessarily but I certainly could have seen him coming in in the head coach role and that would have been interesting but I think he's probably best suited in the current set up of the club to be in that kind of manager role instead

20:42Ross Halls:Okay, I've got a question here this is from adubs5078 Big risk as far as I see it we all as fans know that if he fails to stick about agent o 'neill coming from down the road as we did with manning um yeah i know i've seen a few of those already but i'm not taking any notes of that um i know there's a few people norwich fans putting like screenshots who are still following uh norwich on instagram and that's that's gonna be a new thing as well aj like gary i don't think he's that active on social media but he has got social media pages i think man is like kieran mckenna i'm sure he's got like a secret twitter instagram account just sort of lurking in the background and sort of seeing different comments.

21:21But Gary O 'Neill is actually there publicly there. Obviously, he's got pictures of his family there and all that. Hopefully, people won't just bombard him with stuff and criticise him with stuff if it's not going well. But that is a risk in a way.

21:35Ross Halls:But for me, he's a young English manager. He's managed in the Premier League before. OK, I'm not excited. I'm not like, oh, yeah. But then who else is out there? But yeah, what's your feelings on that big risk from Dubbs here? I know this is difficult coming from someone who doesn't sorry to break it to you guys, instinctively kind of support Ipswich I mean obviously you kind of do from covering the team for so long but unfortunately Cambridge United are my poison but yeah, anyway, it's difficult to say it from this perspective but I don't care what Norwich fans say I do not care, I don't care about any of the agent O 'Neill stuff or anything like that, to me it isn't really relevant especially when they're languaging down the championship maybe maybe in a few years time or whenever we meet again then that might be a different story but i'm not fussed personally um i think that it's just purely going to be on on what happens with ipswich and it's going to be a case of judging what the success is here and i think that there will be external noise and you look at some of the comments made from simon jordan for example um ultimately Ipswich's success will be defined by how they set it for example and you might have people that will criticise O 'Neill externally for not getting Ipswich into the top half or maybe not adapting a style of play that's attractive or something like that or maybe certain results from certain games.

23:04Ultimately he'll be judged on probably two things. A, staying in the division that's going to be number one thing. I know that's not the be-all and end-all but it's the biggest thing and also how he holds himself as manager of this football club. So those are the biggest points for me. And much beyond that, I wouldn't say it does matter. Is it a risk? Of course it is. Because if it goes wrong, this is Ashton's decision. 100%. This is the man Ashton wanted. And obviously there has been a bit of backlash from supporters. And there is a case that he's kind of come out and said, I've been blocking out the noise.