I think we need to be a bit less patient and a bit more ruthless. Broadhead hasn’t been cutting it for a while. Tuanzebe is a defensive liability. Walton has had his day and likewise Aluko.
Have to disagree with you in regards to both tuanzebe and Walton. Walton has played what, 3 games in 6 months? Can't expect anyone to get match sharp without playing. And tuanzebe, still think he's a quality player... to goto remember he's only started around 60 odd games in his career
It remains to be seen whether this unfortunate game impacts our remarkable campaign. Unusual KM errors, poor team selection, poor performances, wrong subs, terrific minor League club effort, tactically astute oppo manager, 38 shots, no goals. Poor Broady needs an awayday break at Clacton-on-Sea! Lets hope it results in the swift signing of striker(s). But for all the Club promo material they send to potential new players, everyone will have seen that match. Why the f...k would they come here?!
I thought first 40 mins we looked pretty good. It looked like what it was a Championship team vs non league. Problem was after a glut of missed chances you could see Maidstone start to grow in confidence and we reverted to the team we were before the last January transfer window. Slow side to side passing, chipped crosses into the box against a team organised sitting in a block team. It's an embarrassing result probably one of our most embarrassing ever but I've seen us perform far worse. Maidstone were clinical and we were profligate. Maidstone were organised at the back, we were extremely niave. Whilst they only had 2 chances there were a couple of times one ball over the top looked dangerous as we were playing such a high line. It reminded me a bit of our performance against Arsenal back in 2011, we had a terrible team but were organised against a team who passed us to death but we stayed solid a simple ball over the top opened them up far too easily. A few takeaways from this: If it wasn't us on the end of it this is what the FA cup is all about. It was a proper smash and grab... our xG was nearly 4 theirs under 1. Aluko as many of his performances under us goes from the sublime to the ridiculous, amazing touch and pass followed by doing something which looks like a under7s game. Tuanzebe shows promise but has made more mistakes than Woolfenden in all his time a Ipswich than the few games he has played. I'm not writing him off because he's got good attributes and hasn't played alot of football in the past few years but nowhere near usurping Woolfenden for me, we've made very few mistakes in the CB positions the past year except when Tuanzebe plays (or Woolfenden doesn't). I thought Broadhead plays the striker role better than Jackson, his positioning is far better but he's lacking confidence at the moment and things aren't coming off and he certainly isn't our answer upfront we need players in. Morsy and Luongo are our best partnership, they just bring the best out of each other. When one isn't playing the other is half the player he usually is. Apart from Aluko I don't think anyone played that badly we just didn't take our chances and were niave defensively...McKenna needs to take some of the flack for that as it was obvious what Maidstones tactic was.
Most of the game was like an attack v defence practice match and we should have been 3 up after 20 minutes but couldnt score to save our life, apparently we had 38 shots at goal and scored once hitting the woodwork 3 times in the process, we outplayed them but without goals its all worthless. McK got it wrong IMO by not fielding our strongest side and subbing when the game is safe, it shows a lack of respect to the opposition and the competition.
Wtf, Broadhead was piss poor, never thought I would say this but give me Jackass up top all day long, if Broadhead is the other option!!
Having had a bit of time to reflect on yesterday, I think it showed up some of our worst attributes. We had too much faith in Plan A that bordered on Arrogance. The more I think about it the more I'm convinced all the subs were pre-planned. We were managing the game we wanted to have, not the game that was happening. This extends to bringing on Buabo, I'm sure he must be talented to get into McKennas thoughts, but really not sure it was the type of game where he ever would have had the time and space to show what he can do Overplaying. Similar to sticking too rigidly to plan A we just kept trying to pass it through the packed defensive lines. I don't know why we abandoned any attempt to run at them. Even Burns seemed to be under instructions to pass through. Defensive weakness. It's been an issue all season, cheap goals. Our defence seems to be so fragile to the point where even during the first 40 minutes it wasn't hard to predict Maidstone scoring on the break.
I think neither are great options and clearly Broadhead is lacking confidence at the moment but his movement and positioning is far better than Jacksons which creates more space for others players. Where Jackson is better is in the press. If rumours are correct we should be announcing a new striker in the next couple of days.
If it was a league game we'd be bemoaning how unlucky we were in that game. Poor finishing, great goalkeeping and a couple of different decisions by the ref it could've been very different. As I've said before the result is extremely embarrassing but I've seen alot worse performances than that over the years. I do agree with your general view of our weaknesses but I don't think they were on show as much as other games and there isn't alot I would criticise McKenna about i.e starting line up or subs etc. the one thing I would is that he didn't rectify our defensive line, it was really clear Maidstone were trying go exploit it and we didn't do anything about it and in my mind took unnecessary risks. Our weakness defensively the rest of the season has generally been in the full back positions particularly on the right, in the centre of defence we've generally been sound, our fullbacks weren't really tested defensively yesterday but the CBs were caught out a few times. I actually also though Burns came on and played very well and direct. I actually thought it wasn't a game for Burns because he likes space and not necessarily a deep line but thought he did pretty well actually. For me it highlighted a couple of things, how much we miss Hirst, he in my mind is up there with Morsy in terms of importance for us and took us to another level when he arrived. How Morsy and Luongo are by far our best pairing, the midfield just doesn't work in the same way without them. Morsy always seems a little more hesitant without Luongo in the team...again another key factor to our great form in 2023 and taking us to another level. Our preferred starting 11 looks well balanced but it took over a year for McKenna to find that. When players come in for those starting 11 players we tend to try to play them in the same way even if they have different attributes. I'd say we don't lose too much in terms of balance if we change the wide forwards, CBs or GK but we have failed to get the best out of players like Ladapo, Jackson, Harness and Taylor who perhaps don't seem 100% comfortable in the roles/way they are being asked to play.
Broadheads been piss poor since before Christmas, we said during the game that Jackson wouldve been better thats how bad Broadhead was, he even managed to block a goalbound shot of ours and also missed a tap in from a few yards.
