They seem to have lost confidence as teams now know how to exploit our weaknesses. Walton included, after a fine season between the sticks, he is not dominating, and no-one battling for the ball. After seeing some magnificent play for 8 weeks, the best for years at this club, a joy to watch compared to the years under Mick and the 2 Pauls, the going has got tough. I am sure it can be sorted over next 2 weeks and we can keep believing.
I wonder if an element of fatigue has also set in? I’m talking specifically in defence, where we are not exactly blessed with strength in depth (in comparison to the attacking positions) and injuries to the likes of Burgess have not helped with lack of rotation. A two week break from league fixtures should be welcome. I imagine we’ll field a second string side for the FA Cup match next Monday, with some first team players on the bench in case we need some quality late on.
Whilst I share the general disappointment of how we turned a good away win into a draw in the dying extra minutes of the game we do need to keep some perspective. From the seven league games we played in October we took 16 points out of possible 21, that’s phenomenal form,especially allowing for injuries and Morsy’s suspension.We’ve all followed Town long enough to know things are never going to run completely smoothly and at some stage we’ll hit an even rougher patch.I’ve still got faith we’re in a good position to sustain a push for automatic promotion.We still have to play both our main rivals at home. COYB!!!
Goalkeepers physically don’t feel the fatigue do they? I’d lay most of the blame at Walton’s door for yesterday’s result. As for set pieces, also a no. They are just a shambles.
I echo Nuggets thoughts. We all have a bad day at the office and we must expect draws and the odd defeat, tho yesterday's was crazy!
Letting a two goal lead is not a new position for Ipswich. Been happening since we've been in this division. For me, I think its a case of arrogance in the team, and we need to be ruthless for the whole match and not switch off after going 2 nil up. I dont buy into the fatigue, especially for the 3 centre backs...especially with our possession based game. I agree with one of the above posts, in that we need a strong leader in defence....keogh would've been ideal 5 years ago, but don't think he has the legs to play too many games.
As with the Port Vale game I thought on the whole we defended pretty well and looked very comfortable at the back. The one thing which doesn't often happen was Walton making a mistake so can't hold that against him but a couple of the other goals are similar themes one of those is we lose the ball too easily in forward areas this time as has been happening quite regularly Harness lost the ball and secondly high crosses into the Box. For the majority of the game we seem to defend high balls pretty well, our back 4 don't miss alot on the air, it's when the pressure is on and the ball comes from wide positions we have problems.
I think we allowed ourselves to get a false sense of security after the early fixtures, a lot of teams dont get going early on so our defence looked impressive so maybe its as well our deficiencies have come to light now. McK and his team must know that we cant concede on the level we have been lately and stay in contention for automatic promotion so hopefully the problems can be ironed out or possibly reinforcements in January ?
Not too sure who we can get that's better than the 5 we currently have, in January? I think the bigger issue, is our full backs are too attack minded. If we can stop the crosses coming in, then that would alleviate some of the hesitation on the box
I agree, not sure it's a personnel thing, we've got a very decent backline maybe lacking a little in experience. We can definitely do better in terms of attacking the crosses but closing them down in addition to better ball retention from the attacking players is also a priority. In some instances I'd rather we brought on an extra midfielder than and extra defender because it looks like we get overloaded sometimes in those areas
