Ipswich Town column: Recruitment policy seems to be backfiring in wily Premier League

Déjà vu. The feeling of having experienced something before.

Saturday's 1-0 defeat at Selhurst Park turned out to be exactly that: a good performance not ending in a good result.

Town were the team who looked like winning it, but one moment of quality from Ismaïla Sarr and that was that.

In a weird way that's what hurts more. Town, Leicester and Southampton are on course to be the worst three promoted sides ever, but the frustrating part is our side have 'been in' more games than they haven't.

If good performances rather than points kept you up, we'd probably be alright.

One thing I've learned from this season is it's not just the quality of the Premier League, it's the ‘street smartness’ that goes with it.

These teams know how to win games in a variety of ways and I think that's really troubled us.

Were we always going to struggle? Probably. But I do think, looking back now, that we have fallen short in some areas of our recruitment?

And who am I to question Mark Ashton and Kieran McKenna? They have single handedly got us to this where we are now with back-to-back promotions.

But there's no doubting some players have worked better than others. And it’s the model of recruiting young, talented players from the Championship that’s probably why we're likely to end up back there next season.

What else could we have done? We were always going to be a smaller fish going into this pond, especially after 22 years away.

But I do think we've recruited players to 'keep us in' games and not enough to go and win them.

We can compete, but we just haven’t got enough to win.

Fulham and Bournemouth were relegated not so long ago, and look at them now. Our manager and ownership make me believe that that's still possible for us, just maybe not this season.