Ipswich Town: Tony Pulis tips Blues to bounce back from relegation.

Tony Pulis, a former Premier League manager, believes Ipswich Town will be the strongest of the three demoted sides in the Championship next season. The Blues gained back-to-back promotions to the top division last summer, but they were immediately relegated back to the second tier, where they will compete in the 2025/26 season. Town joined Leicester City and Southampton in the Premier League after finishing in the bottom three, and while both will be expected to fight for the Championship title next season, Pulis believes Ipswich has the best opportunity.

“Out of the teams going down, Southampton, Leicester and Ipswich, I think Ipswich are most prepared squad-wise to compete in the Championship,” they told OLBG. “Kieran McKenna is a young manager who has had significant success through two promotions. He may have been relegated, but I believe he will be a better manager as a result of his experience. “Out of the three teams that have gone down, at the moment, if you were going to say to me which teams you think would bounce back, I’d most probably say they’ve got the players to do that better at this present moment than Leicester and Southampton.”That being said, Pulis has voiced his concerns about the way that newly-promoted sides have approached the step-up to the Premier League.

Although the money disparity makes it extremely difficult, the 67-year-old believes they are’very open’ to the top players in the world, making it an impossible assignment. “I get a little bit annoyed with this, the gap’s getting bigger and financially there has to be a better balance than what there is now,” he told me. “But I still believe teams are rising, and they could perform much better if they understood and appreciated what it required to win at that level. “You can’t go from the Championship to the Premier League and say, ‘right, we’re going to compete against these in a certain way.'”

“You have to find a way that works for you. Whether that’s great or not, and regardless of how you break up games and do things, when you’re promoted, you have to do things differently. “I do not believe clubs have been doing that. Clubs have been going up there, and they’ve been playing very open.”

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