Ipswich Town fan Russell Claydon ponders if the music will stop with DJ leaving
You take away DJ Campbell’s goals and what have you got?
Hopefully the answer, should we have to find out, won’t be relegation.
But if the new darling of Portman Road doesn’t return, that will be either because the cash has been splashed on a proven goalscorer, or we begin to see the best of troubled Michael Chopra.
In Chopra we have a player who does have it in within him to be that main man, if Mick McCarthy can coax it out of him after losing his way since his gambling demons re-surfaced.
But after Campbell scored eight goals in 12 games before going back to relegation-threatened QPR, where his current form is sorely needed, I do worry his departure could be like pulling the carpet from under our feet.
January is usually a time you only want to be freshening up, not undergoing a major overhaul of the spine of your team. Unfortunately McCarthy doesn’t have a choice after the mess he inherited but you won’t find many, if any, clubs willing to sell or lend an in-form goalscorer at this stage.
McCarthy is right we shouldn’t get too carried away with a lethargic 3-0 home defeat to Brighton on New Year’s Day though.
It may have been the opposite of how we wanted to start 2013 but you are not going to get away with playing the same starting XI, bar one enforced change, over a gruelling festive period which included four games in 11 days.
To get seven points out of 12, including excellent away wins at Charlton and Wolves, is a superb return and I think we have been very unlucky it coincided with other basement sides’ purple patches.
Five points off relegation leaves little room for error now but like many of you I’m looking forward to the welcome distraction of a trip to a Premier League ground again on Saturday.
Get past a struggling Aston Villa side in the third round of the FA Cup with a former Norwich manager at the helm and that would certainly add up to a big confidence boost.
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Weather for Bury St Edmunds
Thursday 23 May 2013
Today
Light showers
Temperature: 4 C to 9 C
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