Exclusive: What Lee Hendrie predicts Ipswich Town and Kieran McKenna will do with Conor Chaplin | OneFootball

The Town hero is into the final year of his deal.

Ipswich Town are under threat of losing a lot of their top attacking talent this summer as they prepare for life back in the Championship.

Not all of Kieran McKenna's side showed themselves to be up to the Premier League standard, which is why they ultimately got relegated, but there were some, particularly in forward areas, who looked like they could hold their own.

One of those players, Liam Delap, has already left Portman Road, and Omari Hutchinson, Ipswich's star winger, is now being linked with a return to the top flight.

In the midst of all this, Conor Chaplin, a man who has established himself as a legend of the Tractor Boys over the last few seasons, being present in the promotions that took the club from League One to the top flight, is in the final year of his deal.

Ipswich are a smart club and will understand the potential need to try and cash in on Chaplin if they aren't thinking of renewing the 28-year-old's deal and don't want him to leave as a free agent. They have two windows to sell him, including this one, if that's the avenue they want to go down.

Ipswich urged to press pause on sudden Conor Chaplin decision by Lee Hendrie

The attacking midfielder's immediate future with Town will come down to how many goalscoring options they offload this summer, according to Lee Hendrie. But he ultimately feels like they will pull the plug on Chaplin this summer.

"These are the sort of players that I think when they've sort of been in and around the Premier League, you do think that sometimes they think that they can go and jump back into that," the Sky Sports pundit exclusively told Football League World.

"I think that the big question is that, yes, for the year left on his contract, is it going to be one of them where they should offload? Should they look at something different? Should they sell him? And that's probably what Ipswich will end up doing.

"I think the way they're going, but then you look at the flipside of that and they've got a hell of a lot of players that have been linked away from the football club.

"So I will probably put that down to whether they actually do sell these, their top players and whether they have to keep a Conor Chaplin, who we know can certainly cause lots of teams problems in the Championship.

"I think it's a tough one. I think it'll be all about who goes, what players go. That will probably give them an idea whether they are to offload with the year left on his contract."

Conor Chaplin's Ipswich Town tenure may be coming to an end

The last time we saw Chaplin in the second tier, he proved just how strong an attacking threat he can be for a player of his position. He directly contributed to 21 goals in Ipswich's automatic promotion-winning 2023/24 campaign.

Unfortunately for him, last season proved to be a step too far, both in skill and physicality. Chaplin struggled to stay fit and only featured in 22 Premier League fixtures, including only 10 starts.

He isn't up there in years just yet, but he is nearing 30. With Ipswich looking at attacking options like Marc Guiu, although not a direct challenge to Chaplin's position, it may be a marker that they are looking to refresh the squad a bit following the relegation.