Note: I did not attend the game so this view comes from the comfort of my living room. As derby days go, that was surprisingly comfortable (obviously not quite as comfortable as the last couple!) City never even got close to getting out of 2nd gear and frankly they didn't need to against an abject Town side for whom the term 'passing football' appears a distant dream. Never have I seen an Ipswich side play such atrocious football - it was, in all honesty, embarrassing to watch and it was almost as embarrassing that City didn't rack up the goals and put the game to bed with plenty of time to spare. They certainly had enough clear cut chances to do so! Meanwhile, John Ruddy spent much of the game as a spectator. The only real moment of concern coming early in the 2nd half when Murphy missed a golden chance to equalise. It 'could' have been different had that gone in but it didn't and some of the chances we missed were gilt edged. Grabban should have had a hattrick while Lafferty missed two clear chances. A repeat of the '5' from 2011 was a possibility. Overall the game was scrappy, not untypical of a derby, but to be honest, I think a lot of Championship away days will be like this and the only important thing is that we take a positive result home with us - and that's exactly what we did today. It wasn't pretty but we dug in, defended better than we did at Wolves and took the only chance that was required to get us over the line. Keep doing that and we'll be promoted come May 2015. Still much to improve on but the squad depth looks great, we have some excellent options on the bench and we are creating chances. My only concern (other than Redmond's form) is the back line - injuries and suspensions are not helping but the balance isn't right. But having collected 9 points from a possible 12 (in four very tricky matches) plus an away win against the auld enemy, I think Neil Adams and his players - and us the fans - should be absolutely delighted with our start. Well done everyone and OTBC Who's the Pride of Anglia?
I unfortunately did go and I completely agree with your analysis! This is officially the poorest Town side I have had the displeasure in watching since the days of John Duncan and his mob. We were outplayed, out thought and over run at times and there is scant consolation if any for us! All credit to you boys you did what you had to do but against a very poor Town side you should have thrashed us.
Not much point as sometimes you just have to throw your hands up and accept the glaringly obvious! I thought it was a totally abject nothing kind of performance and I'm totally disgusted with them. No guts, no grit, no guile, no clue absolutely hopeless. A long hard season of fighting relegation is all we can hope for.
I was hopeful of seeing Rusty at RB with Turner and Bennett as CBs, but the latter's injury put paid to that, Still, only conceding 2 goals whilst scoring 7 is excellent form and I feel we now have some momentum and confidence - something that has been sadly lacking the last 2 seasons. PS - We have surpassed my 'hoped for' total of 6 points by the end of Aug and still have one game to go!!!!!
That's our Premier league mantra Warky, when i watched you beat Fulham on the opening day i thought you looked ok . The way i see it you have a team full of massive 6 ft plus workhorses with very little skill or pace, the trouble is skillful pacy players cost money so you need to hope you can grind out loads of ugly 1 nils and hope for the best mate.
It was bad warky, but not that bad. Lets face facts, norwich deserved the win on chances created, but if you don't take those chances you deserve to get caught. For me, there wasn't a great gulf, norwich scored at the right time and we were chasing the game which created the chances in the second half for norwich. I was really disappointed with redmond, all frills, no end product very much like aaron lennon. Grabben was average, laughty was average, the full backs were average. The bright spots for norwich were tettey and hulahoops, hulahoops ran the game superbly & tettey will be awesome in the championship. For us, skuse was really bad, as was anderson. Bright spots was didsy as always, hyam (why the hell did mick take him off) & mings had a really good game.
Whilst objective it was comfortable I still spent the whole game pacing across the lounge and when it finished felt more relief that any pleasure. I think as we were expected to win with the squad we had the phycological effect of losing for us would be greater than it seems to be for ipswich and their fans, a draw for example would probably have been lamented in the north and celebrated in the south although i think both sets of fans would have settled if offered it before hand. Ipswich do seem at sea and in a strange way in a worse position than they were under Keane and Jewel, both had money to spend and weren't hamstrung by FFP they made some bad signing but there was some talent in the squad just mismanaged. The longer the build a team of freebies, going for big work horses they seems to be doing real damage to the squad. Kinda feel sorry for them. Our demise was fairly abrupt meaning we still had a few good players in the squad to build around (wes in particular) which allowed us to come back up. Ipswich's slow downfall needs halting or they wouldn't be able to rally if they did get relegated. I don't actually think they will this year or next year, Mick will hold them steady but the lack of investment is having a toll on the club.
Redmond was the one who picks laffery out in space in the box twice, made some clever passes. I didn't think we were actually particularly good today, tuesday night we were much better.
the gulf was as big today as its ever been in my lifetime, baring in mind how poorly city played. the scoreline really should have been four or five but for some crazy finishing. ipswich offered nothing but long punts. that was definitely the worst ipswich side i've ever seen play norwich, absolutely no question at all. the team we beat 9-2 a few years ago were outclassed but this side is mind numbingly dreadful to watch. and to think guru slagged off hughton...! at least he didn't play hoofball.
Guru my old mate you can dress it up as much as you want but we were as poor as poor gets! I witnessed the humiliation at the hands of Crawley and I'm still fcuking angry over that! Although I expected us to get beat today I will not accept just how toothless we are and just how poor our tactics were! Norwich really aren't all that but they didn't have to be today! Candy from a baby!
We will make much better sides than Ipswich look very ordinary this season, we were the best team to get relegated from the Prem and apart from our toothless attack managed to hold our own against most so Ipswich will not go down ,no way they will probably just end up lower mid table again like the last 20 years.
one point about mick mccarthy. he is clearly hamstrung by the financial problems at the club but having assembled that group of players, i reckon were he to leave they would get relegated this season. mccarthy is probably the only manager other than pulis who could get that team to pick up points on a regular basis, so fair play to him for that. they have some very poor players.
Just one other thing of note today was your poor support! We didn't hear you until you scored and for about 10 minutes after that it was pathetic! So much for this wonderful vociferous support I keep hearing about! Shame you couldn't even fill your allocation!
I had a conversation with my dad tonight about the match, and he said this was one of the poorest Ipswich sides he'd ever seen us play. He pointed out that they looked devoid of passing players, footballers, something Ipswich sides have always had in them. I'm afraid it looks like MM has by saving them from the drop to league 1 when he arrived, has now turned them to a team of lumps and moved away from the quality football they once played. RIP Ipswich Town FC
i presume this is a joke (not a very funny one admittedly...) city filled their entire allocation. granted i only saw it on the box but the whole atmosphere from start to finish sounded flat as a pancake. i think they even commented on how poor it was during the summary. all you could see was empty blue seats in home areas (25k is not great considering city got more than that against blackburn who brought two men and a dog on a tuesday night in a smaller ground) while the only noise heard on tv was from the away section and even that was sporadic. not sure whether it was down to quality of game or what but every time i've been to ipswich the atmosphere from the home fans is poor unless they are winning. you have too many fairweather supporters - it just doesn't matter enough to them.
You allocation was 2900 and yet your attendance was only 2,076 so explain how you filled your total allocation?
Surely the hosts of the party are supposed to be responsible for atmosphere, the only way i could have gone today was to buy 10 Ipswich tickets previously as my dad lives there . We sell out our place every bloody game you mentalist and we have never been all that vocal to be honest, when those 90 min winners go in we can make the place roar that's for certain.
