Starting lineup never filled me with confidence and so it proved, for me Harness and Jackass are not starters. Clarke scares the bejeezus out of me and Burgess has looked a bit dodgy lately. Let's hope this is our blip, if so, it's great that we are not losing games.
Hopefully just a blip, couple of iffy decisions regarding penalties though. No sign of Gaffer tonight, hope all is OK.
Other than the penalty shouts, we didn’t create much and I can’t remember their keeper making a save. Gutted that we couldn’t hold on for last few minutes. Clarke and Jackson are clearly not the answer down the right. Personally, I think the step up, especially for Clarke is too much. We really could do with Burns and Williams fit. Also multiple players caught offside today, mis-timing runs. Hopefully we can get back to winning ways on Saturday
Frustrating performance and feels like two points dropped, considering this is a Rotherham side still pretty adrift in the bottom three. If we want automatic promotion in this league, then we need to be beating Rotherham away from home. As others said, we didn’t really create much. Rotherham pressed us pretty intensely in spells, which knocked us off our stride. Agree with Spanish that Chaplin had a poor, pretty wasteful performance. Hirst feeding off scraps. A key factor was missing Wolfenden, Williams, Burns, and Broadhead. We’re just not as well drilled and organised when we’re missing that many regular starters (albeit Williams being a more recent fixture in the starting eleven). We need to get back to winning ways at home to Swansea on Saturday. Otherwise, this could be a run of fixtures where we look back with regret. If we put in more performances like tonight’s against better teams, then we’ll really start getting concerned. It’s a shame to be negative, considering we’re in a position and with a points haul that only the most optimistic would have predicted at this stage of the season. But we have built an incredible platform to get Premier League football back at Portman Road and results like the last two are not going to see us there.
Some serious errors of judgment from McKenna lately. Rotherham didn’t even press us today, it should have been a walk in the park.
Think it was just one of those performances take the point and move on, we were okay in comparison to our recent performances (but excellent in comparison to the past 15 years). It very much felt like some of the performances around this time last season when team came up against us and played the low block and were extremely organised however I thought our tempo was on the whole pretty good. Where we weren't great was we really missed a Burns, Broadhead or a Hutchinson, someone who can take the full back on, we looked like we lack options up top. Jackson lacks quality and I'm not sure where Harness fits in, he's great arriving into the box but he gives the ball away an awful lot and not in a Chaplin way where its because he's trying to play a killer pass and he doesn't really play on the left. I wonder whether McKenna sees Scarlett as an option there once he gets a few more minutes under his belt. I thought Chaplin had a number of half chances that he would normally bury. And again I felt we looked more dangerous with Hirst up front. I didn't think Clarke played too badly today but then again he wasn't really tested at all defensively, if I'm being slightly critical given he's decent going forwards he could've been a bit more probing and overlap the winger, he stayed behind him pretty much all the time. In summary, not a bad performance, we take the point and continue. I would say we are playing better than we were this time last season.
I disagree. We were too slow and predictable. Our strikers are ineffective. It wouldn’t matter so much if we could defend, but we currently need four goals to be sure of three points.
I missed most of the first half but second half I thought we looked okay. As I said I think we handled this kind of team much better than this time last season where there really was a period of time where we were pedestrian. What we lacked against a deep lying team was a Broadhead, Burns or Hutchinson to mix it up a bit. We controlled the second half, there only looked like one team who were going to win and we got the goal then not much you can do about Rotherhams second.
You missed the **** half PTC, we deffo improved after the break!! Where is gaffer, hope he is ok, he is normally on here every match day and never misses a couple of days.
Even second half when we were passing it well and dominated, we were laboured and everything was going wide, there was nothing down the middle and no pace in behind. At the end of Birmingham they couldn’t stop us because we attacked with pace in numbers and played through balls. Rotherham could defend it well because it was utterly predictable. McKenna is obsessed with detail but instead of reviewing a particular incident he needs to be asking generally why we hadn’t put that game to bed with at least a two goal margin long before we didn’t defend the throw in. One of those reasons, by the way, was that Kayden jackson isn’t a winger so until Hutchinson came on we only had a serious threat down the left from Davis. But the main one was we squandered countless opportunities first half on the break because we couldn’t play a simple pass so it was easy for Rotherham to mop everything up.
Some context,after two less than ideal performances/results.We've lost one game and drawn three in 15- phenomenal for a newly promoted side.Even if we only draw all the rest of our away games and win our home games the playoffs seem almost certain but I think after this little dip we'll pick up again and keep in the race for the automatic spots. As for their equalising goal it was a tremendous strike,which 9 times out of 10 ,would probably have ended up in Row Z COYB!!!
We’ve been here with near misses before but over 20 years out of the top flight. We shouldn’t be satisfied with performances like the three matches in the last week and a play off spot.
How we react before we get to the tough fixtures in December will tell us what we’re really made of. I don’t believe that it has all been luck up to now but I think there are a handful of sides that are better than us and we need to improve fast to keep our spot until the new year.
I didn't say I was satisfied with a playoff spot.I remember a similar level of despondency/dissatisfaction after the Bristol Rovers draw away last year-keep the faith
Hi everyone, thanks for asking. I got pretty floored by 14 days of covid but am ok now, if very tired at times. I missed the whole game! Gaffers take away, after reading lots of posters and watching highlights: While undefeated and with 8 pts from 4 games, and 3 were away, we were disappointed not to win last night. Missing key players, esp Burns & Williams, and letting Axel get fitter, such a potential talent. Several not at their best, meant it wasnt the smart, fluent, attacking team we know. Passes going astray, Harness & Jackson off it, and poor refereeing again. Have we won a penalty all season? This is football, this isnt L1. We do enough to win most games, but we obviously aren't streets better than most teams, like we were in League 1. Every game is tough- even when playing the so called weaker teams. Rotherham is a bi.ch of a place to play, good home record. This is probably that little spell we talk about. We are still in a fantastic position - a good win Saturday will put things right. Lets remember Sheffield United went up last season and lost 11 games....we'd have to lose 10 out of 31 remaining for that! So , lets not over analyse stuff. When you listen to McKenna he’s already a few steps ahead of me! We aren’t playing our best team each game now, because we miss key players and need to get Axel fit for the December critical run of games. So, chin up chaps, even on a bleak night up North, we play better footie than I remember all those years ago!
It's worth the wider context that, as fans, we've been well served so far this season. We are massively overachieving our wildest predictions (apart from Hampy's week-to-week scoreline predictions!) We aren't entitled to anything. As a recently promoted side who spent four years languishing in the third division (stuck in mid-table before McKenna came along), it would be some accomplishment if we were to go up this season. Not many teams do back-to-back promotions to the Premier League, for good reason. It's difficult to do, especially in our age of parachute payments. We're not viewed as a Premier League side these days, because we haven't been there in 22 odd years. Your footballing neutral probably expects us to drop down the table. To them, we're a plucky early season anomaly. Our expectations are naturally going to rise in line with our form this season. Ultimately, the main factor why we're suffering this bad patch is injuries. We had issues with a notable quality drop off from first team regulars to the substitutes last season in League One. That's only going to be exacerbated at a higher level. And unlike sides like Leicester, Leeds, Southampton, and other established Championship clubs with recent Premier League exposure - we don't have the strength in depth that those teams possess. I hope McKenna keeps the team focused and confidence isn't taking too much of a pummelling. The team will have to step up to reverse this trend. In McKenna, we've got the right manager. He may need to be wary of us potentially being found out. Hopefully this recent run isn't becoming a pattern of 'how to nullify Ipswich' and it'll be on McKenna to solve it, if that is the case. Short term, we need players like Clarke, Luongo, Jackson, Chaplin, and Scarlett to up their games over what we've seen over the last week.
