The BWN Awards (Part Two)

Welcome to Part Two of the Blue and White Notes Awards, my ode to Ipswich Town’s class of 2023-24 (here’s Part One). All these awards recognise moments of various significance where players excelled and which in some way reflect the way they’ve grown as players and contributed over the season. First up…

Ice veins (of the season)

George Hirst v Sunderland (A)

There have always been those forwards who were better reacting than thinking, but Ipswich players haven’t generally let their nerves get the better of them this season. Omari Hutchinson looked unconcerned as he polished off Middlesbrough (A) and Birmingham (H), Kieffer Moore’s finishes were unerring at Coventry and Plymouth. Nathan Broadhead went through a bit of a funk, but he produced one of the most stylish conclusions to a confrontation with an opposing goalkeeper, dinking the ball over Carl Rushworth at Swansea.

George Hirst’s first real opportunity at the beginning of August really set the tone though. Hirst’s Championship record prior to that moment read “41 appearances, 0 goals” but we were hugely reliant on him finally having his first successful season at the level (so much so that we flogged him until his hamstring popped). There weren’t many things more vital to that than George Hirst finally scoring in the second tier. After Nathan Broadhead slipped him in, George never looked back, bustling his way beyond Luke O’Nien and smashing the ball high past Anthony Patterson’s left hand. A goal contribution once every 137 minutes this season was a slight improvement on last years’ goal contribution every 138 minutes. George remains our unicorn.   

Defensive performance

Luke Woolfenden v Leicester (H)

Hard category to judge this one because Cameron Burgess and Luke Woolfenden are very different defenders. Whenever it was time to don Tim Helmets, Big Cameron Burgess was the man to make clearance after clearance, but whenever we go all-out attack and need someone to patrol the halfway line, for me Luke Woolfenden is the guy.

From time to time in League One we used to push everybody forward and have Woolfie sweeping up on his own. There were occasions where we had to do that this year too. We trailed Leicester for 66 minutes plus stoppages at Portman Road and as the game got more and more stretched the Foxes had plentiful threats to worry about on the counter attack – Dewsbury-Hall, Fatawu and Mavadidi.

Rather like Burgess getting typecast as a stopper, sometimes Woolfenden gets the opposite treatment. There’s an assumption that as a ball player he’s not a good defender, but the way he reads the game is perfect for these situations. He’s a good judge on when to get tight and when to drop off, meaning he cuts off a lot of balls into the opposition forwards without often getting caught over-committing. He’s deceptively quick when he gets going, so can mop up balls in behind. He also very rarely deigns to “clear” the ball, so he helps make sure that we turn recovering the ball into quality possession.

While we piled players forward in search of an equaliser against the eventual champions, Woolfenden led the effort to keep the back door shut. We gave up just two shots (xG 0.10) in the entire second half, with a huge proportion of Leicester’s attacks stopped at source by Woolfenden’s astute interventions. Woolfie tends to up his game to whatever is in front of him, so don’t be surprised if he ends up doing well at the next level too.  

Instant Impact

Kieffer Moore v Preston (A)

When George Hirst stretched for that mis-directed pass on Boxing Day Portman Road collectively winced. It looked instantly bad and whatever Freddie Ladapo and Kayden Jackson’s respective qualities, we all knew neither could replace Hirst. Finding strikers in January was absolute murder and we had to wait until deadline day itself to come up smelling of roses.

If Kieffer Moore had arrived a week earlier, we probably win the league. Hell, if his Ipswich career started 45 minutes earlier, we probably win the league. Half time in Lancashire and we found ourselves 3-0 down in pretty much the last game of the season Preston North End actually tried hard in. After a single half of Kieffer they were begging for mercy. The second goal was a bit scruffy but the first was pure bullying, with Leif hanging up a high ball for Kieffer to power home. Surprised that combination never happened again frankly. Another loan that really made the difference.

Long pass

Cameron Burgess v Blackburn (H)

I probably wasn’t expecting to have Cameron Burgess’ playmaking skills up in my awards list. Burgess had a brilliant 2022-23, but left centre back looked like one position we might try to upgrade in the Summer transfer window. By the time the winter window rolled around that conversation was well and truly over, no one was pitching for Big Cam to be replaced anymore.

McKenna has Burgess as his star pupil. The guy who patiently listened, absorbed information and learned, even whilst out of the starting lineup for long periods. Any list of flaws you might have discerned in Autumn 2021 have long since disappeared. His defending is intelligent and his positioning on point. The kind of foot races you used to worry he’d lose he simply doesn’t allow to happen anymore. The passing is crisp, progressive and precise, so much so that it’s now more than just satisfactory, it’s an active asset in our build up. The curled long ball to George Hirst became his calling card and we saw the perfect version at home to Blackburn.

While Burgess dwelt on the ball in our own final third no threat was discernible. Moments later, he launched a long pass that curved delightfully into George Hirst’s path, the former Blackburn striker finishing under the keeper and running to the away end to show them what they could have won.      

Playmaking

Leif Davis v Leicester (A)

Alright, this isn’t a real category and I don’t really have this specific moment in mind here, but let’s talk about what Leif is. There’s a version of an assist-king full back that is pretty one-dimensional. They take good set pieces, they cross well, they dribble well (think Djed Spence, Ryan Giles, someone like that) but they need a particular kind of setup to unlock their key abilities. Your bigger club might spend a few quid on someone like that and hope it’s a skill set that translates at a higher level, but there are limits to this player.

I think Leif might be something else. Parking his direct goal contributions for a second (which might still be underrated, given he’s breaking a record set by Kieran Trippier at a similar age), I think there’s something else here. Davis is an all-round playmaker for us. It’s not just that he bombs down the line and stretches the game. He connects our play through the lines, he moves into midfield, he opens the game up with shrewd lateral passes into half spaces, he picks out cross-field passes.

For the equaliser at Leicester, he’s just rolling the ball under his foot by the left touchline. There are four Foxes covering various passing lanes and Davis picks a simple 15-yard pass into Broadhead that takes all of them out of the game. Broadhead getting into that pocket sucks another midfielder out of position, releasing Luongo, whose shot is parried, leading to the goal. Davis plays half a dozen of these passes every game, putting him more in the Zinchenko, Alexander-Arnold genre of playmaker-full-back than the overlapping speed merchant category.

Off the Ball Run

Axel Tuanzebe v Birmingham City (H)

Axel has turned out to be a very canny addition. Every Summer when potential transfer names come up and a player whose career took a turn for the worse is mentioned you get the same chorus – “Nah, bad attitude/past it” or “that crock? No way!” But when you’re underpowered financially, there’s always going to be an element of risk and reward in some of your signings, a few of which will have to be “rehab jobs”.

Tuanzebe hadn’t had a proper full season since 2018-19, but Ipswich’s medical department seems to be incredibly proficient these days. He was nursed back up to speed, given a gentle glide path into the first team and ended up starting 11 of our crucial last 13 games. Now we’re moving up a division, I suspect we might require even more of his centre back’s skill set down the right flank.

He didn’t quite have the same impact as Harry Clarke going the other way, but there was one lovely assist. Entering the final ten minutes of a tight game, we find Omari Hutchinson doing his thing, sucking in players with his mesmerising close control. Axel Tuanzebe tip-toed past him, almost cartoonishly. Hutchinson played the pass, Axel picked out Sarmiento and Birmingham’s resistance was broken.

Dramatic intervention

Jeremy Sarmiento v Southampton (H)

I must confess, there were frustrating moments when Jeremy Sarmiento started for us. Like McKenna hadn’t quite had enough time with him to work through exactly what his role was. No such problem when he came on as an impact substitute. He was all action, all energy and boy, was he box office. Jeremy made four goal contributions across his 20 appearances for us. The goal that drew us level in the 89th minute against Leicester, the goal that put us ahead against Birmingham in the 81st minute, an assist for the winner against Bristol City in the 89th minute and the winner against Southampton in the 97th minute. ES MÁGICO, YA SABES.

Set Piece Goal

Conor Chaplin v Sunderland (H)

I spent a lot of time trying to think of a specific award to give Conor, our first elite goal scorer since Daryl Murphy. He takes our golden boot for the second year running, partially as a result of him pinging an inordinate amount of shots in (138 to be precise, the fourth most in the division). This resulted in some very clean strikes (like finishing off a delightful team move at home to Hull) and some equally lovely scruffy ones (including the first at Plymouth, which I’m still crediting him with).

Goalscoring isn’t his only attribute and my Chaplin memories this season dwell on some wonderful inside out passes behind the opposition left back and into Burns, as well as some glorious first-time switches to bypass the opposition high press (notably for Burns’ goal of the season). Yet it’s two off-the-ball images of Chaplin that stick with me for this season. The first is at Swansea, Chaplin, soaked to bone in the South Wales rain, charging down a Swansea cross in the second half. Not a drop of the Portsmouthian’s energy was left unspent this season. The other was Chaplin in his big puffer jacket, sprinting across the pitch to celebrate Sarmiento’s last second winner against Southampton. Even in a squad full of infectious personalities and big characters, Chaplin stands out.

The set piece goal he scored against Sunderland was crucial. Off the back of 4 games without a win, again we entered the last ten minutes level. If 2022-23’s main set piece innovation was the low-diagonal-pass-for-first-time-Chaplin-shot routine, then in 2023-24 it was the aerial version of the same thing. Blockers shovelling and pinning defenders, Chaplin almost standing still, Leif Davis pinging it perfectly on to the head of the shortest man on the field for a bullet header past Patterson.  

Honourable mentions

I suppose there’s a bit of a “prizes for everyone” progressive school sports day feel to my end-of-season awards, but if you can’t throw people a bit of love at a time like this, when can you? These players have given me more joy than I could possibly have imagined and my only regret is I never found a proper category for George Edmundson (if you can think of one you’d give him, let me know). Whatever the class of 2023-24 do from here on out, we have to treasure them.