It’s that time of year again; Chelsea buy a young European player who will sit on the bench for the next six months, QPR panic buy and everybody at Sky Sports gets over excited.

To the majority of football fans across the country, today is transfer deadline day. To Ipswich Town fans, today is Monday.

With Derby and Bournemouth blowing the rest of the Championship out of the water with big name signings and big money bids and Cardiff on the brink of a very shrewd purchase in the form of Eoin Doyle, Ipswich Town fans will be watching Sky Sports with envy, bitterly moaning on TWTD about the club's lack of ambition. So what is the situation?

Most fans will be relieved that young starlets Tyrone Mings and Teddy Bishop, along with top scorer Daryl Murphy, are believed to be staying put, with no firm offers following a month of [i]Daily Mail[/i]-heavy speculation.

And with impressive Freddie Sears the only addition to a squad that is currently sitting comfortably in the play-offs, you’d think we would have little to whinge about today. However this is not the case.

Fans were happy with the departures of Conor Sammon and Balint Bajner, with neither player ever really making much of an impression at Portman Road. However, when a Daryl Murphy-less Ipswich were unimpressive during the 0-0 draw against Wigan on Saturday, it showed that not only did we miss Murphy’s goals, but also his sheer physical presence. The side struggled without a target man. Chris Wood’s name has been mentioned on numerous occasions, with nothing materialising.

Yes, this squad has done brilliantly to be where they are at this point in the season, and for that they deserve a lot of credit. But we are over-achieving. This has become evident since the turn of the year, where teams have begun to suss us out, and we’ve dropped points.

We have got where we are with a squad so small, you could take it on RyanAir as hand luggage. This was clear on Saturday, where without Murphy we just seemed to completely lack ideas. If Murphy or Mings were to get seriously injured, then I could see our season falling apart.

This has been the best position we have been in for 10 years, so Marcus Evans does need to show some ambition if he does want to see a return on his investment.

Town's signing of Marcus Stewart during the 1999/00 promotion season and Burnley's addition of Ashley Barnes this time last year have proved that it just has to be one signing to strengthen but not disrupt the squad for the final promotion push.

prebbs007 added 18:21 - Feb 2 Fantastic blog. Totally correct in every word. We have individuals who would get nowhere near the starting line up of Bournemouth Derby or some of the other top teams we are competing against. Tabb, Hunt S Anderson Skuse Chambers(as full bank) smith hyam are clearly in this category. ME at last check was in top 150 of rich list with close on 800 mil so why won't he spend 5 to get back his investment with profit on promotion. This group are not good enough and we will not even finish in the top 6 if Saturday is anything to go by. Get the cheque book out Marcus we may not be in this position for another 10 years and what a waste of this chance that would be. Go get Williams Wood & Lingaard and we might just achieve the unexpected !!

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bellazzurri79 added 19:11 - Feb 2 We need serious additions of quality
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gazzmac4 added 19:55 - Feb 2 I agree with the majority of points in the blog. We were dreadful at the weekend but a lack of signings today is by no mean a disaster. Sears has looked good and as rightly pointed out by MM, the loan window is open well into March. A time where players who wanted to leave permanently and didn't for whatever reason will look to secure a short term switch. This is likely where we will pounce for some useful additions. Wood and others possibly. Prebbs007 you make some good points but there is a fair amount of dribble in there too! we don't have any players who you think are good enough to walk into our rivals teams? I guarantee you that Boro, B mouth etc would bite our hands off for Mings (not just for ability now but also future profit) and Murph is the leagues leading scorer. To say he wouldn't be wanted by others is ridiculous and vastly unfair towards a player who is in the form of his career!! You've done a classic TWTD comment after a bad game or two, where according to you the season is over. We were awful at the weekend. And I do mean awful but the fact of the matter is we couldn't possibly hope to go the whole season without a blip. Make no mistake about it, we are a consistently good side this year who will find its form again I have no doubt. A few fresh faces on loan and the potential is there I agree but to say we have no chance without any is very defeatist indeed!!

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prebbs007 added 20:06 - Feb 2 Gazzmac. I fully respect your opinion. But please read what I wrote. At no point did I say Mings Murph Didzy Berra or Bishop would not be coveted. We know some if not all of those have been and probably still are. But we have a lot of average players who MM has got a lot out of. Teams have worked us out and they know if they match our workrate, then we lack creativity and revert to the long ball. The players I named would not get in the teams around us and while most of our team remains on that category I feel we will struggle to maintain our position. We have done brilliantly and it would not take a massive spend to see it through. That's all I'm saying. Like you gazzmac all I want is for ITFC to succeed and I fail to see how ME can't give his manager that backing. This group are not good enough so why not, when in 4th place and 3 points behind, go for it ????

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NSL added 23:20 - Feb 2 Is it just me or did Mings and McGoldrick both look average on Saturday. What' has that got to do with Murphy playing or not? I don't want to see our best layers go, but the 7m offer for McGoldrick in the summer looks more than fair now. He's just not interested and will leave in the summer for 3m I bet.
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Jimmy86 added 07:51 - Feb 3 Well written blog and I agree with all of it apart from the bit where you said our season would fall apart if Mings got injured. He is young and has potential, BUT he also blows very hot and cold at times. On Saturday he was poor, but who wasn't??? Mings was a real culprit of the long aimless hoof up the pitch to our short strikers. Plus with Parr a ready made replacement we wouldn't miss Mings as much. Some would argue he is lucky to start over parr anyway

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classof81 added 16:31 - Feb 3 Thank you for the feedback. Jimmy86 I do agree with you in the fact that Parr is a very good replacement for Mings, and I do think that he should be starting at right back, although it would be harsh dropping either Chambers, Smith or Berra. I just feel that Mings offers us something different going forward that no other player can with his strength, pace and adventurousness, and we would be weaker (probably an overexaggeration on my behalf to say that our season would fall apart) without him.

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airliner added 18:06 - Feb 3 The Southampton game and replay ruined us physically and fatigue grew from the games. If we have learnt anything a break is not good for Ipswich we become too rusty and lose the continuity. We will get back on track , it was the losing against southampton that started the bad spell, damned fa cup
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