Many of the top Championship players from the previous season were part of Ipswich Town’s summer business in the 2024–2025 campaign.
Kieran McKenna provided several young players with their first Premier League performance opportunity. Even though the top-flight campaign ended in relegation and was essentially a sink or swim situation, in retrospect, it almost seems like a win-win situation.
McKenna’s club would either survive if these players flourished after stepping up, or Ipswich would be relegated and, absent a large player exodus, would immediately have one of the top teams in the upcoming Championship season.
The only high-profile departure from Portman Road this summer is Liam Delap. Although more players may follow him out the door prior to August 8th’s Championship opener against Birmingham City, Kieran McKenna should try his best to hold onto the services of Jack Clarke and Jaden Philogene, particularly this summer.
The Tractor Boys may have the best wing combination in the division if he can.
Jaden Philogene and Jack Clarke’s prior championship seasons
In his brief career, Jack Clarke has already switched to a Premier League team twice as a result of his Championship accomplishments.
Tottenham Hotspur swooped in for a £10 million transfer after his breakthrough season at Leeds United under Marcelo Bielsa, but he never found his footing at Spurs and ended up sliding to Sunderland in League One.
Clarke easily contributed goals and assists at the Stadium of Light when the Black Cats were promoted back to the second division. In his two Championship seasons with Sunderland, he scored 24 goals and provided 16 assists, solidifying his position as one of the league’s most feared wide players.
Because of his involvement, Ipswich was able to sign him in a deal that might cost up to £20 million.
Although Jaden Philogene’s experience in the second division isn’t as extensive as Clarke’s, after a successful season on loan at Cardiff City the previous year, he emerged as one of the division’s more dynamic and feared players during the 2023–24 campaign with Hull City.
In the 2023–24 season, he scored 12 goals, assisted on six others, and finished in the top 3% of right-wingers in terms of successful dribbles. One of his goals against Rotherham United earned him a spot on the 2024 Puskas Award shortlist as he struck a rabona from an almost impossible angle.
The 23-year-old was then re-signed by Aston Villa 12 months after he was sold to Hull; however, his stay at Villa Park was short-lived as Ipswich purchased him for £20 million.
A move to the Championship might help Clarke and Philogene’s futures at Ipswich Town as they were unable to regain their form in the Premier League.
Clarke and Philogene, who are just 23 and 24 years old, respectively, have the potential to be key members of a Premier League team in the future, but the 2024–2025 season didn’t go as planned.
Although Clarke never played in the Premier League at Tottenham, he started just 12 of his 32 games in his first attempt at the top division with Ipswich and failed to score.
With just two starts in the first half of the previous season’s Premier League campaign, Philogene was a bit-part player at Aston Villa. Although he played more minutes at Ipswich, Kieran McKenna’s team was on the verge of relegation, and the 23-year-old spent the season in the treatment room following an MCL injury sustained against Chelsea.
Ipswich will probably enter the 2025–26 season with both Clarke and Philogene on their roster because neither player performed well in their entire debut top-flight campaigns and neither will be on the shortlists of Premier League teams this summer.
Additionally, Ipswich’s assaults from either wing will be extremely lethal in the forthcoming Championship season if they can both regain their form from two terms ago.
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