We started nervously, got the goal just before the half and then played really well at start of 2nd. Got the 2nd goal and once Sunderland went down to 10, we forgot how to play. Would have brought Taylor on rather than Harness and Hutchinson doesn’t look like he fancies 50/50 challenges. Overall, a fantastic result to get the new season up and running. Burgess was man of the match for me
Lovely, subs changed the game....for the worse, ladapo and hut Hutchinson were bloody awful, we need better backups!! I'm sure Hutchinson is just a skills person, his footballing brain is piss poor and Freddie needs a rocket for not passing!! How that wasn't a pen for us....
Freddie had 2 to his right to pass to, crap decision! And Harness and Hutch poor subs. But KM will have pages of notes on many issues. Hladky grew in confidence after awful start.
Well, who would have thought we would win up at the Stadium of Light? We were not perfect and took too long to settle down, but that is the necessary adjustment to a totally different league. Our 1st difficult fixture and we rose to the occasion. Imo, some poor sub decisions as we had dominated the game at 2-0. Our defense held firm. And 3 cheers for Hladky, after very dodgy start, he made some fine saves, but lacks the distribution and presence of Walton. Good thing about McK is, he'll analyse and run thru things that could have been better and address anything we did wrong, today. We know we won't have it all our own way in most games this season and I am sure we'll only get better. What a good start to our campaign! Bring on the next one.
I need to see some highlights but I'm wondering if Ladapo's decision to go for goal was selfish because he's not happy at being behind Hirst now. He'll want to be scoring to make a point but I hope, and this go for all the players, that team decisions come before personal ones.
I think today was the very best outcome,we were severely put to the test and shown that we're not going to have it all our own way in terms of possession.Despite that our quality in front of goal shone through,we created at least as many chances as Sunderland.We rode our luck a bit defensively but worked damned hard throughout.I'm sure KMc was delighted too,great result but loads to work on to make us better still.A great confidence boost without the danger of us getting complacent if we'd had a comfortable win against one of this divisions "easier" sides (if they exist).
Think there was clearly a bit of rust in a few of the players today, the Ladapo at the end of last season would have scored that.
Great win today, the best thing was we weren't on top form but we found a way to win through sticking together as a team, you can see this team won something together and has each others backs and secondly we really do have quality in this division which stood out in the final third. We know we can play good football but we still showed that ruthlessness which we had last season. Started very nervous probably due to the occasion but also as Hladky was in goal and he was nervous himself, thankfully he grew into the game and showed i think that he is a good GK. For all the passing about at the back last season and in particular frustratingly so in the first half of the season we pretty much never gave the ball away in dodgy positions so it was very unlike us to see that today, hopefully it's just the players getting up to speed. I thought Woolfenden and Burgess were superb especially as we were pulled out of shape far more than games I saw last season, whilst that might be because its a step up I'm hopeful that we'll get up to speed and it's just a little rustiness and nerves which caused it. Whilst it was disappointing we didn't show as much control as we did in the majority of games last season I'm hoping that will come as we grow into the season. I also think we wouldn't have conceded that goal had Donacien not gone down injured...how many times have you seen Donacien give a winger that much space to get a running cross in? You'd be able to count it I'm sure on one hand. My only slight criticism was the subs, it felt like one of the games where our form dipped last season where the subs McKenna made changed the momentum for the worse. Its a shame Edwards wasn't on the bench as I saw him as our super sub toward the end of last season, he was superb at carrying and keeping hold of the ball. Also because we'd stepped up a level a weakness of ours was highlighted in that we don't have many(if any) players in those forward 3 positions (not striker) who can play keep ball. I hope there is a good player in there but I still struggle to see what value Harness brings when he comes on, he works hard but his ball retention is awful!!
We can play a lot better that and yet we created the best of the chances away from home and defended resolutely. We’ve lacked a bit of quality in our passing and finishing today and only won that game through relentless organisation and hard work all over the park.
Well done Ipswich and good luck for the rest of the season. ( apart from two games obs) as regards the table as far as I can see they go on points, goal difference, then away wins above home wins, then alphabetical order. Sky probably just couldn't be arsed.
I would say Bigal, that it was a typical poor decision from a poor striker, top strikers would have passed!!
