Match Day Thread Ipswich Town FC v Sunderland AFC – Saturday 13th January 2024 - KO 17:30

I'm mad, me

 

I reckon Beale will have little or no say in the recruitment process if the past is anything to go by - Beale is between a rock and a hard place poor bugger.

 

Beale is fully aligned with the structure he has signed up to. He said as much in his interview.

 

I think he actively wants the exact role he's got. Focus on coaching and match day strategy and nothing else.

Hopefully it won't take him long to pick our best team and to make proactive subs.

 

We haven't had the spark we had last season, or even earlier this season, but Hull can't be any great shakes either or they would be well clear of us in the table. The fact is, with 1 or 2 exceptions, any team is capable of beating any other in this division, so most teams will 'fancy their chances' in every game they play, not just because they are playing us.

 

That is correct - I was responding to the opinion “this transfer period is critical to Beals survival”

 

Aye. Fingers crossed, he's got the job he wanted. Hopefully he pulls a couple of trees up in the next few weeks

 

Cheers

 

We need to make key signings to make this work really is what I’m getting at

 

Taking into account the last 6 or 7 games with Mowbray and then Dodd's 2 or 3 games and of course Beale's first few games I am struggling to see the change in tactics that will get us doing what we did so well last season.
We had a young vibrant team that played at pace with a high press (yes we conceded goals but we always seemed to pose a threat as well) to a team who now seem to want to defend deep and build forward I would hope with pace (the truth is our build up too slow and ponderous to do that). there seems to be a change of identity and playing style which really does not suit the club or the players which I find a little confusing. It would seem that the club are trying to build a playing identity as we have changed head coach but the style of play is still exactly the same.
My question really is what has happened to the fast paced flowing football of last season to this different way of playing now and is this really the right long term plan and is our head coach actually affecting change or just keep doing the same things as TM and Dodd's did before him ???

 

I said this yesterday and got accused of being a WUM for it for some reason. But we might have changed head coach but we still have the same players, the same reasons that Burstow, Mayenda, Rusyn aren't getting in the first team still exist, the same lack of depth in the squad still exists, the same requirements to play a certain way still exist.
Beale is a good coach but he's not a miracle worker. Tony Mowbray is a good coach too. We have to understand that there is only so much that any coach can do with any given set of players. He could set us up to be really tight and we might grind out some 0-0 draws, but the squad isn't really set up for that.
The slower pace is a bit of a head scratcher but the squad is slightly different to last season and that might be the reason.

 

IMO the squad has more depth than last season and Amad apart I believe the first 11 has been improved upon on the whole, players last season looked a little green and needed time to grow but for some reason our approach to game has changed recently and I don't know why but I suspect that as Dodd's has been moved up to assistant coach and Beale has come in that the inputs from Dodd's Proctor and Beale must align so maybe within these 3 lies the problem, of course this is supposition on my part but maybe Dodd's vision and voice is either stronger than Beale's or maybe there vision is aligned and we are just waiting for something to click into place, but at the moment we seem a fair way off from that team of last season and that is not just down to Amad.

 

If you look at our team from a year ago (a 3-1 loss to Swansea) the team differed from the one that lost Ipswich on Saturday in that it contained Gooch, Evans, Diallo, Roberts, and Stewart. So we had Premier League quality in Diallo, a proper focal point at CF, and an experienced defensive midfielder, as well as Roberts. The only real upgrade on that is in the LB position but even then it might be argued the Alese's best position is CB.

 

He isn't up to it. Simple as that.

 

In your opinion.

 

What's the evidence for that though?

For example, Peter Reid was sacked by Man City, after finishing 9th the previous season, for a poor start and playing terrible football.

Tony Mowbray was sacked by Celtic after losing 4-0 to St Mirren (not just being temporarily 3 point behind them). He only had a 51% win rate at Celtic. He was sacked by Middlesbrough after a run of 2 wins in 12. And resigned from Coventry after another winless run.

If we're basing it on what's happened at their previous clubs, Michael Beale's record is much better than those two and they both did ok here.

 

What I find hilarious is the people who are “anti Beale” were just as anti Mowbray, yet, when you point this out to them, they always say “nah I was willing to give Mowbray a chance” and simply forget his first games and the thread which was bumped recently! If you look through that, a lot of posters simply wanted him sacked!

 

I had no problem with Mowbray. Yes, he was in a iffy run of games and things were not going ,I'm sure according to his plans but he also pointed out that the squad needed and badly more experienced players.. That is something Speakman and the recruitment team have ignored for over 15 months or so coming up. All managers/coaches go through sticky patches as I pointed out more than once about Mowbray.. He had these down turns at Blackburn the last two seasons he was there. That doesn't mean you need to replace him, especially when he is correct about recruiting experience. His down side and there was one was bringing in Dack.