This weekend’s biggest Championship fixture doesn’t concern the top teams in the table. No matter that league-leaders Wolves welcome high-flying Preston, that second-place Cardiff City travel to Middlesbrough or even that Aston Villa and Fulham meet each other in a game that only a few years ago might well have been a top-half Premier League clash.
No, the biggest game of the Championship weekend is surely the East Anglian derby on Sunday lunchtime.
Whilst Norwich City have tasted Premier League action fairly regularly over the past few seasons, Ipswich have been in the same division for the past 15 years. The team that gained promotion and even UEFA Cup football at the turn of the millennium has turned into an historic cult side and is no longer a recent memory, and football has changed dramatically since then.
Indeed, there’s a certain consistency to the club. For fully a third of their stay in the Championship – the longest stay of any current club in the division, having been there since before the rebranding of the league in 2004 – the manager has stayed the same, too. Mick McCarthy is one of the longest-serving managers in the country having been at the helm for almost five years.
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This year, after a bright start, the Tractor Boys have faded a little bit, but are still hoping that they can find the consistency to put together a good enough run to perhaps nick a play-off place come the end of the season. Sam Rourke, Editor-in-Chief of Football League World tells me that the former Republic of Ireland boss will have a job on his hands to take the club into such a position, though,
“Mick McCarthy knows the Championship inside out” says Rourke, “but that Ipswich side is simply not good enough to sustain a top six charge over the course of the season.”
“For me, there is a lack of balance in the side, their attacking players like Waghorn, Garner and McGoldrick are all good, but nothing more than good: Championship is just about their level. Their midfield lacks a real leader who is going to take the game by the scruff of the neck, and there are weaknesses in their backline.”
Contrasting that with Norwich City, who still have quite a number of players with Premier League experience in the side, shows the levels and the respective aspirations of the two sides. Norwich sacked Alex Neil last March for failing to mount a serious promotion bid, whilst Ipswich have only been in the play-offs once since 2005 – losing to Norwich at the semi-final stage in 2015.
“With McCarthy in charge, the Tractorboys will never go down without a fight, but simply put, the quality is not there,” says Rourke. If they do manage to pinch another sixth place finish or beat Norwich this weekend, you get the feeling it’ll be through heart, not superior technical ability.
“It’s hard not to feel sorry for McCarthy, as Ipswich owner Marcus Evans is clearly very tight with his money and has never really allowed McCarthy to spend money to an adequate standard to strengthen the side. You get the impression that Evans needs to loosen the purse strings, so the club can sign some genuine quality to help them get back to the promised land.”
In a way, you might say it’s overly safe. McCarthy is a proven safe pair of hands, an absolutely competent manager. But he’s not spectacular. He won’t create an inventive system that other teams can’t deal with. Instead, he’ll create an environment where everyone works hard for the team. Contrast that with Norwich’s recent main appointments – of Neil and Daniel Farke – and you see the risks they’re taking, bringing fresh ideas into their club.
Ipswich may not have sampled the Premier League for years, but unlike Norwich, they haven’t found themselves in the third tier of English football since the 1950s, either.
“It’s hard not to get excited by these fresh, savvy managers that seem to be coming to the Championship every season. The display by Nuno Santo’s Wolves last week against Villa proved it, it was a breath of fresh-air and Bruce’s stagnant 4-4-2 system was well and truly obliterated by Wolves’ free-flowing, attacking brand of football.”
When Leicester City won the Premier League title in 2016, it created one certainty: that every other side who weren’t part of the moneyed elite would use the Foxes’ success as a reason they too could overcome the odds. In the Championship, the same thing may well become true of Huddersfield Town. Promoted in the play-offs last season, David Wagner’s side was fashioned not from big footballing names but from a system which got the most out of them. This season, Norwich’s appointment of Farke – formerly the manager of Borussia Dortmund’s reserve side – smacks of an attempt to emulate the Huddersfield model. But is there a danger that clubs like Norwich are attempting to manufacture something artificial, and doing so unthinkingly?
“There is definitely a danger in appointing ‘Wagner-esque’ managers, as there is every chance the philosophy of football that is attempted to be forced upon the club is simply not compatible,” says Rourke. “But, with a number of foreign managers excelling in the second tier, you can see why it’s a tempting option for clubs.”
This won’t simply be a clash between two rivals, though. It will also be a clash of styles – between the old-school McCarthy and the trendier Farke. It will also say a lot about the ability of both sides to mount a play-off push, even at this early stage.
“The Championship is all about momentum,” Rourke tells me. “We see it season after season. All it takes is a string of wins and before you know it you’ve catapulted yourself near the coveted top six. To achieve that momentum in the Championship, you need a side who’ll operate as a cohesive unit, all moving in the same direction.”
“To say an ‘Old-school type’ manager is more likely to achieve this is just wrong, all you have to do is look at Huddersfield Town last season.”
And there it is – Huddersfield are the model to mimic and their success is clearly having an effect, and is felt across the league. Farke isn’t having the same immediate impact his countryman did, but a victory over East Anglian rivals may well be the kickstart he needs. Either way, both sides will be taking inspiration from an unlikely Yorkshire source.