Dances with Woolfenden

Sometimes I wonder if I just fall for a player and suspend all my critical faculties. There is definitely a football fan equivalent of love at first sight, when you just need one viewing to know that a player is for you. It was like that with Luke Woolfenden at Selhurst Park in 2017. A decent away following rattling around a half full stadium, the locals totally uninterested in whether or not they might progress to the second round of the EFL Cup. The only person less excited than the people of Croydon that night was Mick McCarthy. Mick had pulled one of his characteristic bits of misanthropy, sacking off the chance for a bit of light relief in the cup, so we could start concentrating early on grinding out a solid mid-table league finish. You travelled away for a knockout tie at your peril in those days, preparing yourself for any old Piotr Malarczyk being dragged from the back of the cupboard and pressed into service.

Mick saw no joy in going for it in these games but that night some levity nevertheless inadvertently snuck in. Once we’d all settled in and come to terms with the line-up of teenagers he’d named to confront senior international footballers like Yohan Cabaye, Jeff Schlupp, Patrick Van Aanholt, Andros Townsend and James McArthur, we made the best of things. Get behind them, cheer every tackle, every shot at goal, every nice passing move. Dean Gerken, Luke Woolfenden, George Fowler, Patrick Webber, Tristan Nydam (Chris Smith 81), Flynn Downes, Adam McDonnell,  Bersant Celina, Shane McLoughlin (Monty Patterson 81), Danny Rowe and Ben Folami (Ben Morris 62) held fast for seventy five minutes, before two curled shots in quick succession from James McArthur finally broke their resistance. There’s is nothing more joyful than watching academy kids show courage and skill.

But nothing more Mick McCarthy than reminding everyone afterwards about the cold, hard, realities of life. “I know a game like this will enthuse and excite them but they’ve got to stay at that level now. I am extremely proud of them all and they should be proud of themselves. Some of those lads might get one game in the first team, some might get 150, but I told them all they could not let this chance pass them by. They’ve all wanted this and they’ve made their mums and dads proud because of how they played. We gave them a scare.” Amongst the juniors, precisely one of them would make it to that 150 mark for Ipswich. That night Woolfenden wore number 39, played right back and stood out like a sore thumb with his sloping gait and blonde hair. On the left flank you already knew Tristan Nydam was a star, but I remember as the game went on telling my pal, “that right back’s bloody class too, isn’t he?”

We didn’t see Woolfenden much for a while after that. He made a Championship debut before disappearing off to first Bromley then Swindon on loan, before coming into full first team contention under Paul Lambert, post-relegation to League One. These were the difficult seasons for Woolfie, drafted as a young man into a first team that veered between sort of functional for the level and absolutely dreadful. He spent longs chunks of his second season as the senior centre back to teenager Mark McGuinness, a relationship that just did not play into his skill set whatsoever. Even now, you suspect that Cameron Burgess does most of the talking. Like many Ipswich youngsters, his early twenties saw him pass from academy kid with infinite potential to flawed real life footballer, earning him an unwelcome reputation for being excessively casual and physically fragile. For some, that’s all he will ever be.  

He remained through all that, my kind of footballer. Sometimes, there are players who just call to you and you overlook their shortcomings. I had similar feelings about Owen Garvan back in the day, he was left-footed, graceful, creative and Roy Keane despised him, so what if he couldn’t run.

For me, even in his lower moments, Woolfenden was still a Centre Back who was calm in possession, elegant as he brought the ball forward and crisp in his passing. He was that even when we were losing 3-0 to Northampton.

Quietly over the Summer of 2022 other physical gifts seemed to develop, he filled out, the shoulders got broader and he developed a deceptive turn of pace which seemed to glide him away from attackers. He was harder for centre forwards to bully and found the game easier and easier to read. Not that Paul Cook really noticed. Woolfenden was supposedly kept on that Summer only because he helped the club fulfil a little known EFL rule that required a home-grown player in every match day squad. He started a few games early on that season before ultimately Paul Cook decided that Toto Nsiala was a better bet and rumour has it that Cook was shaping up to ditch both Burgess and Woolfenden in the January 2022 transfer window. Any possible sympathy I can muster for the Liverpudlian dissolves instantly when I ponder that possibility.    

I suspect that discovering Woolfenden must have been an early thrill for McKenna. You don’t often take a job at a League One club and find an unused defender of such quality. Pressed into service in a 3-5-2 with Janoi Donacien on one side and George Edmundson on the other, under McKenna Ipswich suddenly had the best defence in the division. Between McKenna taking over in December and Edmundson’s ankle injury in Late February, Ipswich didn’t concede a single equalising goal across 14 matches. When we took the lead, we won the game, the end.

The Woolfenden that emerged from that period was the real thing. A centre back who controlled possession, who could pass between the lines, drive forward with it too, who read the game so well he rarely had to make tackles, who was fast enough to defend the half-way line, even if the other 10 Ipswich players were piling forward in search of a winning goal. The occasions on which a lower league bruiser roughed him up got fewer and fewer, almost disappearing entirely in our promotion season. It’s an overall package which I still think goes underrated (in truth, no amount of praise would satisfy my bias here), both amongst Ipswich fans and across EFL punditry. Last season he was the best centre back in League One, no real contest, but I only saw him just sneak into one Team of the Season, for the NTT20 podcast. There are also still some in the Ipswich fan base (including one prominent former player) who are quick to detect and lament an excessive nonchalance.  

On Saturday they had a little something they could point at, probably for the first time in a while. Woolfenden has stepped up to Championship football almost seamlessly, but even I’ll admit that very occasionally he seems to forget there are attackers in this division who can hurt him. He’d spent most of the game in full cruise mode, comfortably reading most of what Swansea could throw at him, it was one of those afternoons where he’d stopped half a dozen attacks without really making a single tackle. I was all prepared to write this blog as just a pure panegyric.

But Swans spent the entire game firing the ball out to Jamal Lowe as Plan A, Plan B and Plan C for a reason. One of the most dynamic attackers in the division, we’d doubled up Clarke and Hutchinson on him all day. Down by the touchline one-on-one in the 93rd-minute was probably a good moment for Woolfenden to give the foul away, take the yellow and defend the set piece. His partner, Cameron Burgess, almost certainly would have, but you sense that Woolfie’s wish to do everything clean as a whistle got the better of him and by the time he’d reconsidered, Lowe was in the penalty area and the tactical foul option has gone.

Yet, to be honest I’m not sure I really want him developing that sort of nasty streak. As far as I’m concerned, unflustered elegance is what made him the one. Cynical fouls are for other, lesser defenders. If anything, refusing to foul Lowe reflects well on him. Or maybe I’m just a soft touch for my boy. We’ve all got one.

Luke Woolfenden v Swansea City

Minutes 90

Accurate passes 34/41 (83%)

Shot accuracy 0/1 (0%)

Touches 55

Passes into final third 3

Accurate long balls 0/2 (0%)

Tackles won 2/2 (100%)

Blocks 1

Clearances 3

Interceptions 2

Recoveries 5

Ground duels won 2/2 (100%)

Aerial duels won 1/1 (100%)

Fouls committed 0