Finding Their Level

On some level I think there’s an assumption that most footballers over time find their level. Attitude might dictate whether they spend most of their career at their ceiling or their floor, unfortunate injuries might disrupt or entirely deter progress, but the trajectory for most players is dictated by their underlying ability and reality will generally have kicked in by their peak years 24-30. Yet, one of the striking things about this Ipswich team is that it’s full of players whose careers are currently defying pre-conceived ideas about their place in the natural order of things.

Yes, some, whilst they might be showing quality we hadn’t quite anticipated, are following a fairly normal path. It isn’t unusual for a young centre back like Luke Woolfenden to develop into something more rounded in their mid-20s, nor is it that strange for younger players like Leif Davis and Nathan Broadhead to make their way back up the pyramid after leaving Premier League academies for lower league football.

Yet we’ve got half a dozen players or more whose involvement in a Championship promotion race makes little sense. Conor Chaplin had a stand-out season in a Barnsley team that barely avoided relegation, then was a bit of a squad player as they snuck into the play-offs the year after. After that, he returned to the bottom two tiers, where he’d spent most of his career to date. This is not the CV of someone likely to come back and hit the top 10 for goals and assists in the second tier.

Chaplin’s story is relatively believable next to Cameron Burgess. Released by Fulham aged 22, Burgess moved to League One Scunthorpe, then onto League Two Salford City and then back into League One with Accrington Stanley. He was already more or less half-way through his career before he got a move to Ipswich, an end-of-window transfer that looked like an over-priced afterthought at the time. Unable to secure his primary target (Luton Town’s Sonny Bradley) Paul Cook had gone down his target list, spent £750,000 on a player who looked ponderous on the ball and vulnerable on the turn. Reportedly, he already regretted it by December 2021 and wanted Chey Dunckley (now of Shrewsbury Town) to fix his damaged defence. Up until November 2022, even Kieran McKenna had only really picked him in George Edmundson’s absence. Cam was already 27 by the time he properly broke into a top League One team and yet now looks unbelievably polished at the level above – he was always commanding in the air, but now has an outstanding passing range and such positional awareness that the flaws that looked so obvious against Joe Ironside are barely discernible against Ike Ugbo.

There are others you could file in this late-bloomers category. I have written previously about Wes Burns and Massimo Luongo. Suffice to say that neither Burns’ journey via Forest Green, Cheltenham, Fleetwood and Aberdeen, nor Mass’ previous life as a jobbing holding midfielder for QPR and Sheffield Wednesday predicted where they are now. If there’s anyone in the Ipswich squad that truly embodies the spirit of “Hey, look at us? Who would have thought? Not me” it is Kayden Jackson.

Kayden Jackson, the literal competition winner, who steadfastly refuses to be “not good enough for this level”, with 3 goals and 4 assists in 778 minutes of football for us this season. He celebrated his 194th appearance for Ipswich Town with a peach of a cross for the third. Confirming as always that Kieran McKenna knows infinitely more than anyone, as well as the ignorance of his two immediate predecessors, both of whom ostracised him. Roll on a well-deserved 200 up.  

In amongst these players who tweaked aspects of their game, unlocked new skills and found good specialist roles in a squad of diverse talents, there’s one whose career prior to Ipswich simply baffles me - Mr. Samy Sayed Morsy. I watch Sam Morsy in an Ipswich shirt and I just do not understand how this player has spent the majority of his career in the third and fourth tier. How nobody noticed sooner. This is his 15th season in professional football, of those he has spent only five in the Championship, five in League One and five in League Two.

Along the way, various clubs passed on Morsy. Wolves released him as a 16-year-old and Port Vale picked him up, but essentially had him as a fringe player until his contract expired. Credit (extremely grudging) to Paul Cook for bringing him to Chesterfield, who made a modest profit on selling him on to Wigan a couple of seasons later. Wigan, then managed by Gary Caldwell, didn’t seem to know what to with him and he sat on the bench behind Chris McCann and David Perkins, before they farmed him out on loan to Barnsley for the 2016-17 season. Barnsley then passed on the set fee that they’d agreed with Wigan to make it permanent and he returned to Lancashire. Only then, with Paul Cook coming in for the Latics, did Morsy establish himself as first choice (and captain) for a top League One outfit, aged 26. There was still time for one more manager to reject him before he came to Portman Road, Neil Warnock deciding he was surplus to requirements following his big move to Middlesbrough.

I do not understand. I do not understand. I have now watched Sam Morsy play 123 times for Ipswich Town. He is relentlessly good. A 7/10 performance is an off-day, it’s usually an 8 or 9. When he signed you got all the usual chat you get about a defensive midfielder, about being terrier-like, combative, a win it and pass it sideways man. A few videos suggested he might also be quite “press resistant”, that is, pretty good at receiving the ball under pressure. The suggestion was that he was decent on the ball (but no more than that) and that in League One, he’d be too good for the level (but not at the next one).

I don’t think we had any expectation (or indeed any right to expect) the kind of performance he pulled out yesterday and delivers in most other Championship games. We knew we’d get the off-the-ball defensive midfielder - attacking every second ball, pressing in our half and theirs, snapping into the tackle, shrugging off opponents in duels, bailing out his full backs, all the things you need from a number six. I don’t think anyone anticipated we’d also got Luke Modric with a (always neatly trimmed) beard. He takes the ball in whatever circumstance you want to give it to him. For the first goal yesterday Hladky played Morsy a straight ball with three around him, the crowd around me groaned, “what are you doing”. Sam wasn’t bothered, he controlled it, he moved it and the attack got going. He rolls out of tackles, he drives up the pitch, he rolls out of more tackles, he passes between the lines, he makes neat triangles with his wingers and full backs, he plays through balls and floats nice crosses, he hustles past his forwards, he takes it upon himself to shoot, especially when we’re playing badly. Yesterday, he did all this, despite fasting from 6am. I can barely put one foot in front of the other if I miss breakfast.

I watch all that and it’s beyond my understanding how it took so long for him to find his true level – a top end Championship midfielder (maybe more). It’s the kind of thing that makes you doubt the whole idea of football as a meritocracy. When a player this good spent so long labouring in the lower tiers, you see it’s all just opinions (often bad ones), choices (players and coaches), opportunities (given and taken), contingent events, with plenty of unrecognised talent. Did they think he looked too slow? Was he not tall enough? Were some of these managers stereotyping him as just a ratter and water-carrier? Whatever it was, it is beyond my comprehension. Give us another five years of peak Morsy and we’d conquer the world. We all know McKenna unlocks things, but this is beyond that. All of this was in Sam Morsy all along, how on Earth did it take football so long to find it?   

Sam Morsy v Sheffield Wednesday

Minutes 85

Accurate passes 66/71 (93%)

Chances created 3

Expected Assists 0.10

Touches 81

Passes into final third 8

Accurate crosses 1/1

Accurate long balls 1/4 (25%)

Dispossessed 0

Tackles won 2/3 (67%)

Interceptions 1

Defensive actions 4

Recoveries 9

Dribbled past 3

Ground duels won 5/8 (63%)

Was fouled 1

Fouls 0