After a long, grainy relationship, Ipswich Town and Mick McCarthy finally parted company towards the end of the 2017/18 campaign.

The former Town boss left the club with four games of the season remaining, giving owner Marcus Evans time to evaluate who he wanted to be the first-team manager of his club the following season.

A poor 12th place finish would end yet another mediocre season in what seemed to be some form of Championship purgatory for the Suffolk side.

Three weeks after the drab campaign ended and McCarthy had departed, a new man had been pinpointed.

After League One play-off heartbreak at Shrewsbury Town, Paul Hurst would make it to the second-tier when he was appointed the club’s new manager.

Hurst had proven himself in the lower leagues having assembled a strong Shrews side who were within 90 minutes of making it to the Championship.

Working on a shoestring budget, he managed to have them fighting for automatic promotion before having to settle for the play-offs.

Failure to gain promotion sent the vultures circling, and he would be picked up by Ipswich to be their new boss in what was seen as a new era for the club.

And it was an appointment that the vast majority of supporters bought in to.

Many fans knew it was a risky appointment having never managed in the second tier before, and it took longer than expected to adapt.

Signings form the lower leagues were thrust into the frantic division, and Ipswich failed to win a single game in their first 11 fixtures, finally getting three points away at Swansea on October 6.

Two more games and two more defeats, and the plug was pulled on the Hurst experiment.

One win, six draws, and seven defeats meant it was a six-month spell of hell for all involved with Ipswich.

It was an appointment that promised so much but ultimately backfired in spectacular fashion.

The reaction was positive, but it was more wishful thinking from plenty of fans after the well-wishes turned sour in a drastically short space of time.