Soccer Football – Championship – Sheffield Wednesday v Ipswich Town – Hillsborough Stadium, Sheffield, Britain – September 16, 2023 Ipswich Town’s Conor Chaplin celebrates after the match Action Images/Craig Brough
Coventry City must have been envious of Ipswich Town when Conor Chaplin powered the team to back-to-back promotions under Kieran McKenna, but they won’t be feeling that now.
The forward spent one season with the Sky Blues, originally signing from Portsmouth on loan before arriving on a permanent basis in January 2019.
His first half of the 2018/19 campaign saw him score five league goals from 20 appearances in League One.
Chaplin’s loan was made into a permanent switch on 4 January, but he found the back of the net just three more times in that term as the club failed to gain promotion to the second tier.
A total of eight goals from 31 appearances led to him departing after one season at Coventry, signing for Barnsley in the 2019 summer window.
The now 28-year-old found himself at Ipswich by 2021, arriving in July of that year with the Tractor Boys seeking a return to the Championship under Paul Cook, and it was under Kieran McKenna where he really thrived.
Conor Chaplin’s rise at Ipswich Town
Chaplin arrived at Ipswich in 2021 after the Tractor Boys had finished ninth in League One in their second season in the division.
Relegation in 2019 had seen the Suffolk outfit reach their lowest point since 1957, the last time they were below the second tier of English football.
Cook was unable to deliver results in the first half of Chaplin’s first campaign at the club, but the appointment of McKenna as his replacement proved a masterstroke that eventually got the best out of the attacking midfielder.
The former Coventry player wouldn’t have been on their radar when he managed just nine goals from 39 appearances in 2021/22, as McKenna oversaw an 11th place finish.
However, 26 goals in the following season led to Ipswich earning promotion back to the Championship, right as the Sky Blues suffered the disappointment of a play-off final loss to Luton Town on penalties.
Chaplin was the key man behind their impressive second place finish in the table, with no other player in the entire league scoring more than he did.
And his impressive form in front of goal continued into the second tier, as Ipswich went one step further than Coventry in their pursuit of top flight football.
Chaplin contributed 13 goals and eight assists in the second tier as McKenna’s side earned a place in the Premier League, while the Sky Blues slid down the table to ninth.
Conor Chaplin’s decline as Coventry City close in on Premier League return
Frank Lampard
Ipswich were the first team to go from League One to the Premier League with back-to-back promotions since Southampton over a decade prior.
Chaplin did what Coventry weren’t able to do, and he was crucial to that accomplishment with important goals across the campaign.
Winners against QPR, Sheffield Wednesday, Middlesbrough, Sunderland, Swansea City and Blackburn Rovers proved a huge difference in their fight for automatic promotion.
Yet the Tractor Boys struggled in the top flight, with Chaplin unable to take that one step further up the football pyramid.
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The 28-year-old scored just one goal in the league, playing 22 times in total as McKenna’s team endured a long and difficult season to finish 19th.
Ipswich rebuilt the team in the summer after a number of key exits, and it was a sign of how much had changed at Portman Road when Chaplin was loaned back to Portsmouth in the summer.
Coventry, meanwhile, regrouped under Frank Lampard in the meantime, and they now look to be on their way to the Premier League themselves.
While the Sky Blues may have been envious of what Chalpin went on to achieve after he departed the team, they may yet have the last laugh.
If Lampard’s side can clinch a top two finish in 2026, then they will be able to put behind them the decision to move on from the attacking midfielder all those years ago.
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