Ipswich Town - Watford The two teams meet with new members of staff. Sylvan Ebanks-Blake for the locals and Guiseppe Sannino for the visitors. The Tractor Boys are looking to return to their winning ways after drawing with Nottingham Forrest while Watford are searching for their first win after a run of nine games without. Watford and Ipswich have won 25 to 27 matches of their 69 meetings since a 2:1 victory in an FA Cup for Ipswich in 1936. The locals managed five goals in 1939 and four in matches twice since. The visitors have managed to find the goal three times on three occaissions. The teams Mick MacCarthy has a fully fit team to make his selection from and Sylvan Ebanks-Blake joins the contenders. On the other side Giuseppe Sannino has Lloyd Doyley back in contention for his first game in charge but will wait for Essaid Belkalem, Davide Faraoni, Tommy Hoban and Almen Abdi to make their reappearances. Joel Ekstrand for the visitors is available after his suspension.
Nice one AK - 5 *'s from me. As we seem to play far better away from home, but mad Mick has got Ipswich paying well, I am going for a 2-2 draw.
With GFZ still at the helm and the way things had been, to be honest I'm not sure I would have expected anything from this game. With the change, who knows? We can't even really say anything about formation etc. Let's have a punt and say the defence will be more solid (Ebanks-Blake will inevitably score though) so 1-1.
No idea what sort of team will appear today, or who will do the post match press conference. Maybe AC has been kept on as the voice of the Horns.
Afternoon, Hornets! Should be a good match today, and hopefully a home win, which it should be on our current forms. Not sure what difference Sannino will make to your players and performance though... Nevertheless, confidence is high in our squad, our defence is strong and we're looking half decent, I doubt SEB will play, possibly on the bench, but he'll have to fight to get a place in our starting 11 at the moment. Anyway, good luck, lads! (Except for today and the return fixture of course!)
Watfordfc team: almunia doyley angella ekstrand pudil thorne murray mcgugan pudil fabbrini deeney watfordfc subs: Bond (GK), Battocchio, McEachran, Forestieri, Anya, Iriney & Nosworthy
Starting XI: Almunia (GK) (C); Doyley, Angella, Ekstrand; Cassetti, Murray, Thorne, McGugan, Pudil; Fabbrini, Deeney. Subs: Bond (GK), Battocchio, McEachran, Forestieri, Anya, Iriney, Nosworthy. Personally I'm very happy to see Fabbrini in the starting line-up - he's a serious talent who, when fully adapted to the English game, will be a quality player for us. It seems people may have written him off, but parallels between him and Forestieri last season are there for all to see. Give him time! COYH
Ipswich starting XI : Gerken, Chambers, Smith, Berra, Cresswell, Hyam, Skuse, Tunnicliffe, Nouble, McGoldrick, Murphy Subs : Loach, Mings, Edwards, Tabb, Anderson, Graham, Taylor No place for SEB, won't be match fit for a couple of weeks.
Jersey reckons it is eight Scott Loach on the bench. Maybe he will have a chat to AC about winning his place in the team.
