Шинэ дасгалжуулагч Гэри О’Нил удирдлаган дор Ипсвич Таун зуны солилцооны цонхоор 109 сая фунт стерлинг зарцуулж, 12 шинэ тоглогч элсүүллээ.
Премьер лигийн улирал эхлэх гэж буй энэ үед Ипсвич Таун өнгөрсөн таван жил багийг удирдсан Киран Маккеннагийн орон зайг нөхөх томоохон өөрчлөлтийг хийгээд байна. Шинэ дасгалжуулагч Гэри О’Нил багийн довтолгооны хурд болон хамгаалалтын нягтралыг сайжруулах зорилгоор Абдул Фатаву, Даизен Маэда, Эмерсонн зэрэг тоглогчдыг бүрэлдэхүүндээ нэмлээ. Ялангуяа хамгаалалтын шугамыг бэхжүүлэх үүднээс лигийн түүхэн дэх хамгийн өндөр тоглогч болох 2.06 метр өндөр хаалгач Кьелл Шерпен болон хамгаалагч Исса Диоп нарыг эгнээндээ нэгтгэв.
Өнгөрсөн улиралд Ипсвич Таун бөмбөг эзэмшилт, довтолгооны эрчимтэй хэв маягаар Чемпионшипт өндөр үзүүлэлт үзүүлсэн. Гэвч Премьер лигийн түвшинд хамгаалалтын алдааг багасгахын тулд Саша Лукич, Азор Матусива, Флорентино Луис нарын туршлагатай хагас хамгаалагчдыг авчирч, илүү бие бялдар шаардсан тоглолтод бэлтгэлээ. Бэлтгэл тоглолтын хүрээнд Райо Вальекано багийг 3-0 харьцаатай хожсон тоглолт нь шинэ дасгалжуулагчийн тактикийн уян хатан байдлыг харуулсан юм.
Гэри О’Нил өмнөх багууддаа үзүүлж байсан тактикийн хувилбаруудаа Ипсвич Таунд хэрэгжүүлэхээр зэхэж байна. Баг нь 4-4-2 эсвэл таван хамгаалагчтай хувилбараар тоглож, сөрөг довтолгоонд илүү найдвар тавих төлөвтэй байна. Ийнхүү тоглогчийн бүрэлдэхүүнээ хүчирхэгжүүлсэн нь Премьер лигийн өрсөлдөөнт нөхцөлд тэсэж үлдэх болон үр дүнтэй тоглолт үзүүлэх гол хөшүүрэг болох юм.
Дэлгэрэнгүйг эх сурвалжаас харах
↓Эх сурвалжийг нээх ↓
With the Premier League getting underway later this week, The Athletic is tactically profiling the three promoted sides. We started with Coventry City, who will be easy on the eye under Frank Lampard — now it’s Ipswich Town, who have undergone considerable change since promotion.
It has been a bittersweet summer for supporters of Ipswich.
At the start of May, they sealed their return to the Premier League, bouncing straight back into the English top flight via a hard-earned second-placed finish in the Championship.
But just over a month later, the manager who made it all possible stepped away. Kieran McKenna announced his departure after almost five transformational years in charge.
It leaves uncertainty swirling and enormous shoes for new boss Gary O’Neil to fill. But following an ambitious transfer window, spending just over £109million on 12 permanent signings they look prepared for the physical challenge of the Premier League.
Ipswich were strong in all phases of play under McKenna last season. They controlled possession and kept pressure on their opposition in most of their games — only Middlesbrough recorded a higher average field tilt throughout the season, a metric that measures possession in the attacking third to give an indication of territorial control.
They also pressed aggressively and moved forward quickly when they had the chance. Ipswich allowed their opponents an average of 19.1 seconds on the ball per possession sequence, the least amount of time in the Championship, while only Watford and Coventry could beat their rate of 3.2 direct attacks per game.
Such defensive tenacity and an ability to attack at speed should help them to stay in games and roll with the punches even as the quality of their opposition increases.
The last time they were promoted, for the 2024-2025 season, Ipswich’s possession numbers dropped by more than 12 per cent, while they conceded goals at almost double the rate.
Their investment in the transfer market points to an acceptance that they will have to dig in this season, looking to add more physicality, pace and ball-carrying ability to a team that presses hard and counters quickly.
Joining Jack Clarke and Jaden Philogene on the flanks, big-money signing Abdul Fatawu attempted 7.6 take-ons per 90 minutes in the Championship for Leicester City last season, the second-highest rate in the division. The 22-year-old has bags of pace, and is capable of spectacular individual moments.
On the opposite side, Daizen Maeda, 28, scored 14 league goals for Celtic as they won a fifth consecutive league title. He’s a hard-working winger who can bundle his way forward with the ball.
Enciso, who was on loan at Portman Road in 2025, is similarly adept at dragging his team up the pitch and leading the line with energy and personality, as he did for Paraguay at the World Cup. No player created more chances or attempted more shots for Strasbourg while O’Neil was in charge.
But most intriguing is record signing of Emersonn. The 22-year-old is still raw, having scored only twice in two seasons for Goztepe in Turkey before his breakout move to Toulouse. He brings athleticism to the centre-forward position.
The Brazilian is a target man, having won the second-highest number of aerial duels per 90 minutes in Ligue 1. As that stat suggests, he is imposing, happy to stomp into the channels and target space in behind.
Per data from SkillCorner, Emersonn made the most dangerous off-ball runs per 30 minutes of team possession in Europe’s top five leagues last season.
Though he is not the finished product, he gives Ipswich an out ball and will lean into the chaos of the counter-attack wherever he can, making himself a handful with his runs towards goal and ahead of the ball.
Further back, Sasa Lukic will bring Premier League experience and toughen up the midfield with his strength in the tackle. The 30-year-old Serbia midfielder joined after three seasons with Fulham.
He could join Azor Matusiwa in a deeper role, a combative defensive midfielder who loves to step up and crunch into a challenge to keep the opposition penned in. The 28-year-old Netherlands Under-21 international completed more tackles, interceptions and recoveries than any other Ipswich player last campaign.
Florentino Luis is another astute signing, one of Europe’s most intense midfielders without the ball, as he proved at Burnley last season. As we can see from the plot below, the 27-year-old is always searching to stick a foot in and intercept the ball, while no one in the Premier League in 2025-26 covered more distance per 60 minutes of ball-in-play time.
With so many destructive midfielders, Ipswich are well equipped to hold firm in a 4-4-2 defensive shape – or a back five, should O’Neil see fit – and look more equipped to survive games in which they do not have the territorial dominance they enjoyed in the division below.
When they do nick the ball, options will be flooding forward up ahead.
O’Neil has shown he can adapt his approach to various situations.
At Bournemouth, he helped stabilise the defence after Scott Parker was dismissed following a 9-0 defeat away to Liverpool, keeping the club in the division with a pragmatic, defensively organised style.
When head coach at Wolverhampton Wanderers, O’Neil’s team pressed higher and his wing-backs pushed on, leaning on the talents of a fluid front three in transition.
His latest job at Strasbourg saw a more balanced approach, but the desire for incisive forward passing and fast attacks remained clear.
Such tactical flexibility makes him a sensible bet to build on McKenna’s work, with a squad suited to shifting styles and playing O’Neil’s kind of intense, direct football that can help them to compete.
Their comfortable 3-0 pre-season win over Rayo Vallecano suggested that he would err towards a build-up shape with three defenders, giving attacking left-back Leif Davis freedom to push on. They were happy to invite Rayo’s man-to-man press and look to play through with short, sharp passes into midfield, where Luis and Marcelino Nunez were energetic and consistently offered the pass.
Such a sequence leads to their third goal, as the two midfielders combine, escape the pressure, and open up space for Luis to scamper forward and find a floated pass for Emersonn to score.
Though Ipswich aren’t likely to take risks with their build-up too often against the bigger sides, it is the kind of approach play seen from O’Neil’s teams before, pushing one full-back forward while the other stays deep.
It gets the dangerous Davis into promising areas to create — like we saw from Rayan Ait-Nouri under O’Neil at Wolves — while the winger on the opposite side, in this case Fatawu, is isolated and ready to receive the switch of play where he can face up to his defender one-vs-one.
Equally important will be Ipswich’s ability to create from more frenetic phases of play; pressing high, winning second balls in midfield, and picking their moments to swarm around the ball and sprint into space.
Their first goal against Rayo showed how their aggression without the ball can lead to chances. First, it is Emersonn who charges down the bouncing ball, before Nunez snaps at the heels of the midfielder, helping to box their opponents in.
Eventually, it is Sindre Walle Egeli — another busy midfielder with the technical quality to play as a No 10 and the energy to press from the front — who nicks the ball and launches the counter.
Notice how Davis begins to make his way down the left flank as soon as possession is turned over. The ball is eventually worked out to the full-back to score.
Ipswich are unlikely to press as aggressively as they did last season but their physical additions in midfield will help them to keep a solid shape and enable them to be selective about when they chase the ball.
There are parallels to Sunderland, who came up last season with a similarly hard-hitting style, before investing heavily to enhance that approach for the Premier League. A return like theirs will be the aspiration.
The big question is whether Ipswich can hold out defensively and whether the individual quality throughout the squad can deliver in the big moments to win games. While they have undoubtedly added more bite and muscle to their squad, they lacked the creative spark to make consistent inroads to Premier League defences two seasons ago, while lapses of concentration cost them further back.
Ipswich made 14 errors leading to goals — only Russell Martin’s Southampton made more two seasons ago — while they conceded around five goals more than the quality of shots faced suggested they should, pointing to underperformance from their goalkeepers.
They have recruited an eye-catching new goalkeeper, Kjell Scherpen, who will become the tallest player in Premier League history at 6ft 9in (2.06m). Predictably, he is a dominant cross-claimer, but has also posted promising shot-stopping numbers across two title-winning campaigns in Austria at Sturm Graz and his only season at Union Saint-Gilloise in Belgium.
Issa Diop is another signing who adds grit and Premier League experience after spells at West Ham United and Fulham in the centre of defence, but the back four will need to be better protected this time around.
O’Neil will not try to reinvent McKenna’s Ipswich, but will look to add layers to their possession play while ensuring the team is more physically equipped for the end-to-end challenges of the Premier League.
