Match Day Thread Hull City v Ipswich Town

I’m back! My first real, live game in a couple of months, sadly not a happy return, not happy watch, nor a happy tigress. What is it with City & international breaks, we’re a shadow of team before, massively missing McBosh & Lundstram. First half, first 20 mins, I feared the worst, Ipswich were confident, composed, we looked like rabbits in the headlights, no cohesion, nervy, couldn’t find a successful pass, resorting to looking to pass backwards, slow, ponderous. Pandur, penalised for hanging onto the ball too long, despite the ref’s warning, Giles throw in, straight out of play, very frustrating for professional footballers. Strangely though, we grew into the game first half, or they came down to our level, took their foot off the gas.

2nd half, their subs improved them, Lots been said about the ref, we didn’t lose because of him, we were undone, again, by poor defensive decisions. Hughes header for 1st goal, heading thin air, nowhere near the ball, massive misjudgement. 2nd goal, avoidable, poor defending. Serge has got his work cut out to address the shortcomings, with a run of challenging games. Same goes for the set piece coach.

On a positive note, good response to minute applause ahead of game. Despite the disappointing result, I’m not a masochist, but overall did enjoy return to footy, even on a freezing, wet night & parts of game before hope was gone! UTT.

 

You'd think Joseph missed five chances the way people are going on. He missed one. Others missed some too. If anything is boring about Joseph it's the obsession with making it about him game after game after game whether he plays well or not, and even whether he scores or not. He's scored goals this season and he's played very well this season. Last night he was a key part of a game plan that was working very well until Hughes had an absolute howler, essentially costing us the game. Joseph wasn't the worst of the attacking players and he wasn't even the worst finisher. This narrative that all he does is run around and there's absolutely no more value to him than that is just stupid.

 

On his Boro form he would.

 

I think a sense of reality is needed here. We have a squad that was effectively assembled with frees and loans. We have a nucleus of players injured/suspended that would definitely be in the starting 11. Even with those missing, we have still been a competitive side, that’s all we can ask, isn’t it?

 

You'd think.

 

Welcome back Tigress, pity it wasn't a happy one.

 

While it's always frustrating to lose, it's a dose of realism and a nod to how much we've overachieved without the injured players. Credit to Serj and the lads for that, but now it's glowingly obvious we need bodies back, those that have been playing have been admirable, but my god they need help. Belloumi is gonna need time to get back up to speed and improve his confidence, and the same goes to the returning Lundstram McBeasty and Millar, Matazo is another who'll have to be eased in gently. Afraid it is what it is this year, we look a decent team when we have all our big guns fit and available, but no depth without.

 

Running on empty at the end. Need reinforcements in January, no good hoping the injured players will make full recoveries. Could do with a Seri MK2 but with more than 3 gears.

 

Interesting. Joseph had one chance which he made a horrible mess of. Who was the 'worst finisher'?

 

Some people were getting carried away about promotion. That was always a huge ask and being in the top 6 for a few weeks after the first 15 games isn’t a fair reflection of this team. Jakirović has done a great job so far under the circumstances and a mid-table finish is nothing to be sniffed at. It would certainly be an improvement from last season and our attacking has drastically improved. The attacking football last season was woeful and the defending was average. This season the defending is woeful and the attacking is second only to Coventry.

 

What game were you watching? The time when he was clear, could have slipped in Beloumi, but left it too late and got robbed for the tenth time, yeah you're right he was brilliant, no wonder so many people think you're an idiot.

 

Although it doesn’t take a brain scientist to work out if they win the first header everybody running out of the 6 yard box isn’t effective.

 

Agree completely.

 

Some of the more critical posts at the moment come across really petty to me. I think people have gotten carried away with our league position and now 'expect' results, like we're owed them. Frankly the gaffer has them all playing out of their skins and has introduced an exciting, direct style of play that works for us. I do think that most of the goals we concede are down to individual errors and not down to tactics or naturally being too open. That simply is what it is. We just can't defend crosses anymore and it does need to be rectified.

When it comes to the attack, you can't just point fingers at the attackers. The number of chances we've created has reduced a fair bit with the quality of personnel we have out at the moment, so it's not just down to finishing. We've lost a lot of ****housery and we're also not seeing the full backs get forward as much either which is what we were using to create a lot of chances previously. When was the last time we saw one of them long diagonals that set Giles, Coyle or Drameh off on a rampage? Our directness has gotten a lot more 'straight down the field' recently, hoping for knock ons with no runners. So what's causing this problem? It's definitely not because Kyle Joseph runs around but can't finish etc. The ball progression has slowed down a bit and the attackers are getting more crowded out than previously.

 

Gyabi.

 

Could it be as simple as other teams now have us worked out? At the start of the season we were an unknown quantity with a new unknown manager. A surprise package and on the back of that we managed to surprise a couple of teams?
Ollie McBurnie makes a huge difference to how we play and when this mystery calf strain clears up we will be a different team.

 

Well Gyabi had two chances from a similar range to the Joseph one and ballooned them thrice the height of the goal, so possibly him. Point is, Joseph's finishing really wasn't that big a factor in the game. He messed up one decent chance, lots of other things happened too, but some people want to just focus endlessly on Joseph.

 

I think that's quite a common tactic now, to try and avoid people being onside in the goalmouth on a second ball. Same reason teams don't have a man on each post any more. Problem on that goal was that Giles didn't get out as quickly as everyone else, as well as the fact we again let the ball drop like that, which is happening far too often.