Rangers handed Ipswich Town a goalscorer and £4m profit
During his time at Portman Road, Martyn Waghorn was a consistent goal scorer, earning the Tractor Boys a substantial amount of money in the process.
Over the past fifteen years, Martyn Waghorn has scored more than 100 goals in his career and has been a consistent presence on the EFL scoresheet for ten different clubs.
The forward, who began his football career with Sunderland, has played for multiple clubs, including double-figure totals in the past. Currently, he plays for Derby County in League One.
He joined the Rams for the second time during this current tenure; in the summer of 2018, he moved from Suffolk Town to Pride Park for a reported £5 million.
The striker was at the height of his abilities at the time, having proven himself as a premier striker during a goal-filled stint at Rangers in Scotland. Town was able to take advantage of his prolific nature both on the field and in the pocket.
When Ipswich Town signed Martyn Waghorn from Rangers, they scored a great deal.
Waghorn had enjoyable loan stints at Leicester City and Charlton Athletic while still a teenager, and he was beginning to show signs of a natural goal scorer while still in the Sunderland system.
Twelve goals in forty-three league games in 2010 lured the Foxes to spend £3 million on the striker, but after he signed a permanent deal, the opportunities dried up. He eventually moved on loan to Millwall before being cut loose for Wigan Athletic.
The forward was struggling to find consistency at the DW Stadium following a very bright start to his career. Therefore, it must have been a huge relief when Rangers called in the summer of 2015, demanding his services as they made their way back up the Scottish football hierarchy.
Waghorn was called by the Ibrox team, which had been demoted to the fourth division due to financial irregularities. This allowed the frontman to have the most successful season of his career thus far after moving north of the border.
After a season in which he scored 28 goals, his reputation as a clinical marksman was cemented. He went on to score 16 more goals as his team made it back to the top division the following season.
In the summer of 2017, Ipswich made the reported £1 million investment to acquire him, eager to get a piece of the action. He promptly paid for that investment with an outstanding season in front of goal.
Waghorn finished his rookie season with 16 goals, making him the team’s top scorer in the league. Mick McCarthy’s team was comfortably in mid-table at the end of the campaign.
| Martyn Waghorn’s Ipswich Town Stats | ||||
| Appearances | 46 | |||
| Starts | 39 | |||
| Goals | 16 | |||
| Assists | 11 | |||
| Goals/90 | 0.42 | |||
| Source: FBRef | ||||
With four goals in his first three league games, he would have quickly won over the supporters at Portman Road. He scored the winning goal away to Barnsley on his EFL debut, and a brace against Millwall gave his team a thrilling 4-3 victory.
Waghorn was always ready to put the ball in the net, whether he was charging from the backline or pounced on a loose ball in the box. He frequently emerged as the player who could bail out the Suffolk side with crucial strikes.
It’s difficult to recall Ipswich Town as a consistent Championship also-ran; following a string of mid-table results, they were in the second division for 17 seasons prior to their relegation to League One in 2019.
With only one play-off campaign to show for their fourteen years of second-tier play, the Tractor Boys of the past were a far cry from the teams of today, with players such as Waghorn open to being plucked off by teams with higher goals.
Martyn Waghorn proved to be a profitable addition to Ipswich Town.Half a decade ago, Derby County was one of those teams. The Rams wanted to improve on their previous season’s unsuccessful play-off run, and they identified Town’s striker as the player who could complete the task in the next campaign.
The Tractor Boys were keen to cash in and express their gratitude to Waghorn for the memories, as their £5 million fee seemed like a substantial return on their investment from just one year of the goal-getter.
They scored a ton of goals and made a good amount of money, so Ipswich will view the situation favorably.
Derby, on the other hand, lost their play-off campaign despite Waghorn scoring 13 goals to get them to the Wembley end of the season match.
The front man had stints at Coventry City and Huddersfield Town before returning to County last summer at the age of 33. He had only signed on a trial basis after appearing in Craig Forsyth’s testimonial, which led to him making an impression on Paul Warne in the dugout.
Waghorn never produced as much as he did after leaving Portman Road, but the Tractor Boys made a tidy profit for what they had during his one and only season in Suffolk.
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