So Long Samy

As was his way, immediately after Bolton Wanderers thrashed his Ipswich team at Portman Road in September 2021, Paul Cook gave a rather tactless interview. He had an unfortunate habit of giving in to his emotions post-game and engaging in ill-advised candour. Still reeling from Dapo Afolayan's masterclass, he did something no football manager should ever do. He promised a one-man fix.

“I know the characteristics of the Samy Morsy-type, for example. Everything that we lacked today will be there times 10 from him. There will be no performances like that when he’s in the team.”

It turned out, of course, that not even Sam Morsy could rescue Paul Cook. We had signed Morsy as a cheat code centre midfielder whose out of possession talents would help us dominate the ball and prevent teams from playing through us, yet Sam initially made our defence no less permeable than Rekeem Harper had done. By December Morsy more than any other signing had us wondering what strange talent vortex had overcome Portman Road. He skulked his way round the pitch in the dreadful display away at Charlton which immediately followed Cook's termination. It looked for all the world like our yam yam captain was done with Suffolk after never wanting to be here in the first place.

When McKenna arrived, it struck me that Morsy, more than any other, was a potentially dangerous figure. For a rookie coach with no previous experience of managing senior pros, there was every chance that the gravitas of Cook's captain could have scuttled any buy-in from the rest of the group. After all Sam had more experience of what it took to win promotion from League One than McKenna did. Convincing Morsy may have been the most important thing McKenna achieved in his first season at the club. The synergy that McKenna and Morsy found was the catalyst for everything. Perhaps no relationship in this century has been more transformational for the club.

What we have learned of Kieran McKenna over the years points to someone measured in his judgement and constructive in his criticism. No teacup throwing, no loss of composure, no deep well of anger, all fine-grained analysis, emotional intelligence and understanding. These are the most useful tools for a modern manager. Conversely, what you gleaned of Morsy's personality over the years, certainly on the pitch, was something far more serious, more abrasive, far less flexible. He always seemed a man of unbending character, built on self-confidence and above all, conviction. These were two personalities that could have clashed but instead produced something complimentary. You worry how we might cope without this harmonious arrangement.

Beyond his captaincy, Morsy of course made important contributions as a footballer. “We are too soft. Not streetwise enough” is a football cliché. Pretty much every supporter has looked at a losing team and said some version of it. Sam Morsy is the epitome of the footballer that we cry out for when we say it. Someone always at the absolute limits of the combativity allowed in football, a battler with an almost permanent scowl, a player who never saw a duel he did not fancy.

Not that he was just that. He was a player too. We came to appreciate all his habitual moves – the blocks, tackles and interceptions, the scoopy cross-field passes, the lofted crosses that were deceptively difficult to defend, the economism of his short passes and then the real signature move, that “forcefield” hand-off roll around opposition tackles that allowed Morsy to drive us up the pitch.  

There were stand out moments - the tackle and rasping drive that saw us win narrowly at Stadium MK in 2023, the press and cool passed finish at Vicarage Road, the deflected equalisers against Leicester and to rescue a point at Southampton. Sometimes with these things you see the player involved and attribute the outcome to sheer force of personality. You know the kind of character Morsy is and fill in the blanks.

Like his nearest historical analogue - Jim Magilton - Sam Morsy did footballistically out-of-character things just when we required them, seemingly out of sheer bloody-mindedness. Or perhaps out of an uncommon self-belief. It's not that most players lack the technical ability to chest trap a bouncing ball, get their head over it and ensure they get a shot on target that needs blocking (and from there, deflected into the net). When players snatch at that 95th minute long range shooting opportunity it is stillness of mind, constancy of character, that is lacking, not ability.

Conviction. Once McKenna had Morsy believing in what the club and the team were doing, he became the conduit for everything, for belief, for the strange charismatic energy that took over the club between 2023 and 2024. We all knew and sang it in the concourse at Hull and Coventry, "Morsy and McKenna's men, are going up again!" That conviction, that true belief and sense of purpose, was central to Morsy's contribution to the club. Sometimes football clubs just need to find that one player with a special drive. That one player whose principles leak out into the rest of the group.

Conviction is important but can also make people a challenge to deal with. Ideologues can be difficult to manage. Morsy’s unstinting belief in his own value meant continuous contract battles. In successive summers Morsy agitated for a new deal, with the heavy implication that failure to recognise his value would cause problems. In both instances he came out on top. He was the main man and leveraged the club's need to keep progressing to his advantage. Conviction was also what had Morsy expressing his political positions whilst in club colours. This included the refusal to wear the rainbow armband this season, one of the few moments in the last few seasons that has brought me shame rather than pride about the club. The club should have had solidarity with LGBT+ players and supporters as a non-negotiable value. Sadly the conviction of our captain trumped that of the institution as a whole.

Is that same sense of self-belief that now makes it impossible to keep Morsy at the club? It obviously can’t suit the club to have our most proven midfielder leave the club right now. Morsy’s departure leaves us two, possibly three short, just two weeks before the start of the season. We would do well to recruit even one player superior to our departing captain, something we struggled to do last season, even as a Premier League club. It surely crossed the club hierarchy’s mind to simply tell Sam to honour the remaining year of his contract.

Yet you wonder whether the club baulked at the prospect of telling such an authority figure that he wouldn’t get his way and, worse, that like every footballer his age, his role would diminish over time. Would he have made a good peripheral figure and a willing squad player? You suspect not. Nobody puts Morsy in the corner.

So it comes to this end. Some time ago I hoped we’d see Sam Morsy retire as an Ipswich player deep into his thirties. That his time with the club would end with a post-season lap of honour as a Premier League player. It seems sad to end his era with a relegation and an exit out the back door, heralded by an unexpected sighting in Sainsbury’s. Football partings are so rarely what you want them to be.

The ending changes nothing though. Morsy was everything the club needed him to be over the past four seasons. The single most significant presence in the lifetime worth of memories we lived in those back-to-back promotions.