Hope for Ipswich Town after 'gut wrenching' relegation
Ipswich Town boss Paul Lambert has described his side's relegation to League One as "gut wrenching".
Lambert took over at Portman Road after Paul Hurst was sacked after just one League win in 14 games.
Despite a terrible season in the Championship, Lambert is positive about the future saying the club could be "brilliant" again.
Click below for Paul Lambert's press conference following Ipswich Town's relegation.
Read below for a transcript of Paul Lambert's press conference:
Paul, how do you reflect on what's happened?
You’ve got to remember the kids have come through academy football and right into the first team. Number one they’re going to learn on the job, that’s the only way they’re going to learn.
Number two, it’s not as if they’ve been here, bought from other teams with experience in the Championship, they haven’t, some of them. Fleetingly they’ve had one or two games, but the majority have been thrown in, and that’s why I think there’s a lot of good things to look forward to.
You analyse it, as I said before, your season starts in June/July when you start pre-season, that’s to be ready for the whole season. It doesn’t start in August, it doesn’t start in November.
I’m absolutely gutted for everybody at the stadium, the supporters have been unreal, that’s just unreal what’s going on. I think they put a lot of supporters to shame the way they are, it’s phenomenal, it’s overwhelming. You see it at the end of the game, it’s incredible the support.
We analyse what went wrong, but I can’t comment what happened previous times, I can only say what happened in November since we’ve been here. I’m gutted for everybody, players, staff here at the training ground, everybody. On the flip side of it there’s so much to look forward to here, there really is.
How does it feel to be relegated?
It’s gut wrenching, it’s horrible, you can’t put it into words what it feels like. It’s like a blow. But the support is incredible, absolutely incredible.
There’s a lot of young kids who’ve not experienced this before. The older lads, some maybe haven’t either, some, they’re older they know, but the young ones won’t really know.
It might not feel it at this moment in time, but it’s an incredible learning curve and they’ll come back stronger for it. They really will, they’ll come back stronger.
My own view at the minute, this club it could be brilliant again, because of what can happen. It might take a little bit of time, but there could be so much good here.
Are you looking forward to your first summer transfer window?
Whether transfers come in or not, I don’t know what’s going to happen. I think the club needs a couple of bodies in to try and help them, to try and freshen it up.
Some lads move, the load lads will probably go back, that’s normal, so the turnover is quite big, but again as I said before there’s a lot of good things here to look forward to.
The supporters, with the players, there’s a major connection there. It’s an incredible connection now - we’re there, the secret is to keep it and I think that’s important.
It doesn't sound like there's going to be an enormous turnaround in players?
You can’t expect to go down to League One and spend £5 million on a player can you? It’s impossible.
There’s got to be a plan here and a strategy which I’m pretty sure will happen. It’ll probably be quite clear in the next couple of weeks what’s going to happen.
So, if you’re looking for an overhaul buying players at five, six, ten million, it ain’t going to happen, it’s not going to happen, it’s impossible.
We have to see how the young ones progress with the experienced lads that are here and build the club in the right manner.
If you keep buying loans you’re going to be in the same position. It’s not my way, the loans, as I’ve always said, other managers make a go of it. My view, I just want to build the football club the right way.