The good thing about the Championship is that you quickly get the opportunity to move onto another game. Saturday’s dispiriting goalless home draw to Wrexham contained all the negative hallmarks of this Ipswich team - mainly slow build up play, an inability to properly break down teams packing players behind the ball, and an ever-changing starting eleven where attacking players struggle for form. The other good thing about this particular Championship season, as noted by Royston, is the more open nature of the division. With the exception of a red hot in-form Coventry, no other team has been able to string together a sustained run of form. Parachute payment clubs are usually the teams that start opening up a lead at the top of the table around this time - but us, Southampton, Leicester, and Sheffield United have all been unable to break into the top six. With that in mind, an away trip to Hull would’ve looked like the perfect tonic in pre-season to get a win on the board. Widely tipped for relegation struggles, Hull have been one of the surprise factors in a season packed with them. Hull are the second highest goalscorers in the league, with 28 goals so far this season. Unlike Saturday, we could be seeing a fair few goals tomorrow night. If we beat Hull and Oxford in two away matches in four days, the whole week will go down as another positive run results wise. However, we still don’t look like we’re quite clicking, with the constant changes in the starting eleven surely a contributing factor. Add to that, we’ve routinely struggled to win games away from home this season. I’m going for an end-to-end, entertaining 2-2 draw.
Great opener Nuggets and I share yr thoughts. Strong team turns out and gets back to our occasional much admired fluency. Bags of goals and we take a well earned point. 2-2
Great work once again Nuggets, and delighted the old boy tops the league. Lets hope this optimism rubs off on the professionals!
Hopefully we'll start with a stronger side than we did on Saturday and that will lead to a 2-1 win!! COYB!!!
Think Hull we be a little more open, which should play into our hands a little more. We'll concede but I think our attacking players will have more space and we'll win 2-1
Six changes. I get it’s a mid-week game, but we seem to struggle this season in mid-week games after making several changes. We need to see really positive games from Greaves and McAteer. McAteer in particular hasn’t impressed whenever I’ve seen him. Cajuste in central midfield and Hirst up top also need to get properly back on form.
Yeah, a familiar tale here of the occasional nice passages of play, but too many disjointed passes and a lack of decisiveness in the opposition half. We’ve been more on the ball and until recently we’ve keeping the Tigers at bay, but we’ve not created a clear chance at goal yet. We’ve got to step up the tempo and intensity if we want to get three points here. Hull seem happy to sit back, man mark us, and then hit us on the break. Last five minutes have been all Hull though.
Poor first half. Hull edge it on the number of chances, but a goalless draw probably a fair result. Considering the number of goals Hull have scored this season and the quality of our team on paper - that was a pretty dull, uninspiring first half. Felt like two mediocre teams playing end-of-season football with nothing to play for. Big improvement needed for the second half.
We keep saying they look as tho they have never played together, gelled etc, but that is the dullest half I have seen all season.
Get Nunez off, Jesus wept. Completely complacent. Get Hirst off, he’s doing eff all. Get McAteer off, useless.
