Ipswich Town
Ipswich Town never reached the Premier League in the nine seasons from 2009/10 to 2017/18, spending nine in the Championship. Their best finish was 5th in the Championship, in 2014/15. They didn’t win a major trophy. Over those nine summers they paid £9.7m in transfer fees and took in £25.6m, a net profit of £15.9m.
Nine seasons, nine Championship campaigns. Ipswich Town spent the whole decade in the second tier and only once came close to leaving it: fifth in 2014/15, good enough for the play-offs. The rest were finishes between seventh and 16th, the very definition of mid-table.
Ipswich could find and develop players; keeping them was another matter. Jonathan Walters went to Stoke in 2010, Connor Wickham to Sunderland for £8.1m in 2011, Aaron Cresswell to West Ham in 2014 and Tyrone Mings to Bournemouth for around £8m in 2015. All four went on to play in the Premier League. Coming the other way, no signing cost more than about £2m.
Ipswich won the league in 1962 and the UEFA Cup in 1981, so ambition is part of the furniture at Portman Road. With £900m, the 115.football job is to keep Wickham, Cresswell and Mings, and turn nine years of treading water into a proper promotion push.
Season by season
Biggest signings
Biggest sales
Fees are those reported at the time, some estimated, for moves in the summer window. Trophies counted: the Premier League, Champions League, Europa League, FA Cup and League Cup.