Reading some of these threads (mainly from a certain poster) it is just so depressing that after a bad and avoidable defeat some people just shrug their shoulders and say never mind! I am bloody angry because yet again we have flattered to decieve! Yet again we have been badly let down! Yet again we have lost to a poor team who we really should have beaten! Yet again our season is over before Easter! Yet again we hear the same old excuses from the manager! Yet again we seem to accept mid table mediocrity.....! I used to support a proud club that had realistic ambitions, a club which was always involved at the business end of the season, a club that always had something to play for right up to the end of each season. A club with a strong leadership and a clear forward plan that always improved. It has now been 10 years since we were dumped out of the top league and in all that time we are further away now of even achieving the play-offs yet alone automatic promotion. We are sleep walking and accepting the absurd suggestion that a draw against Hull, Palace, Peterborough or Watford is somehow a decent result! We have teams now like Blackpool, Reading, Cardiff, Hull that are smaller clubs than us but always finish higher than us! How has this been allowed to happen over 10 years? Complacentcy, lack of serious ambition, mis-management and a general acceptance that we can no longer compete at a higher level. Please don't give me all this gash about needing time to rebuild! We have had more rebuilds in the last 10 years than Katie Price's boobs! Yes I'm ****ing angry! I and many others have been taken for mugs for years
Too right Warky. We weren't beaten by a better side - that happens - we were beaten because our defenders were pissing around. Both goals were entirely avoidable and when the players are sharp, up for the fight then you don't see goals conceded like that. They looked like they couldn't really be arsed second half. Looking up the table even West Ham United with players like Kevin Nolan in their side aren't good enough to get promoted. There's no denying we've finally made some progress but we need to build on that because our away form is now drawn three and lost one and that won't be good enough to get us promoted, nevermind closing a 12 point gap.
I agree Yorkie. What pisses me off the most is this casual acceptance of defeat and using the "Rome wasn't built in a day" default statement to justify each defeat. The play-offs were always going to be a tough ask this year but after putting in a decent sequence of results it became a faint possibility. The acid test was always going to be the result against Watford as we have such a dire record against them. The answer yet again is that we failed miserably and we justy haven't improved enough. Jewell is to blame for this by not getting in the right players that we needed last summer and failing to secure reinforcements in January!So long as this clown is in charge we will be lucky to reach mid table next season.
JWM your heart rules your head seemingly most of the time. For me your posts pretty much sum up our season this year, Jekyll and Hyde. Just only 2 days ago, you were positive about next season but after a poor 2nd half, against a team who we haven't beaten in 8 years, its all suddenly doom and gloom again!! Thats 23 points out of 33 which is pretty darn good after a 7game loosing streak, where things looked fairly ominous!! Just because I accept midtable mediocracy this season, doesn't mean I don't want the club in the premier league as much as you do!! But we have to be realistic about our ambitions over this season and the next couple, success doesn't come instantly, we need to progress along way before we can look at becoming an established premierleague team. For example teams like Swansea and Norwich, have added realistically to there squad which was successful in the championship, not changing the balance of the team too much, not adding any real big names but QPR were a quick fix, get in the premierleague asap build a squad quickly then add high profile players when we get to the premierleague, this is not the direction I want Ipswich to go in!! Which is probably the direction we will need to go in if we want to get promoted next season!! Over the 10years we've had many ups and downs Royle did extremely well on limited resources but then the squad got broken up, Jim rebuilt the a decent team with limited resources, then the money came in and things looked hunky dory but Jim didn't handle it well, nor did the club make a smooth transition between a skint club and one with alot of dosh things stagnated but we still had a decent enough team, then the Dark Lord came in, destroyed the team, got alot of average players for alot of money on high wages, whoever took over from this it was going to be a serious rebuilding job but IMO for the first time in the 10 years, I feel we have the finances plus a decent experienced manager to evolve us as a team and push us on, we just need to now develop the team on the pitch, this is why I am prepared to be patient. I am frustrated because we should really be in the premierleague now, especially as in recent seasons I don't think this league has been overly strong!! The biggest mistakes the club have made was spending too much money too soon, which I think they have realised now and don't seem quite so wasteful, Jim spent about £10 million in 2 seasons, Keane spent about £12 million in 2 seasons and Jewell has spent about £3 million so far, and the other big mistake was appointing Keane, probably the biggest mistake the club have made in its history!! Your right we've had far too many rebuilds over the past 10 years, some neccessary some not, but atm it certainly is, i have a gut feeling that hopefully this will be the last one and the next few seasons we will for the first time in 10 years have a level of consistency at the club with a core set of players, hopefully reaching and establishing themselves in the premierleague!!
We know, Jewell knows, the tea lady knows, Gus uhlenbeck down the wing yeah knows and even Clegg knows that we did'nt sort out the defence in the summer but that is gone now and nothing can be done to change what happened then i think the recent resurgence has proven that we have a decent attacking side so it is clear that before next season the defence will be addressed. I don't think after every slip up we need to be all doom and gloom we are not Man United fans so we should not think we will win every game.
So if everybody including the tea lady knows, then why the **** wasn't anything done about solving our defensive problems in January...! Just a thought!
IMHO January is when you pay over the odds for a lot of players and also the position we found ourselves in the right sort of players might not of fancied the move. I don't think any of us likes to lose games but it will happen, I do think we are more or less sorted attacking wise so the defence should get a few additions before next season.
Fair play Weighty! You obviously don't expect much and are happy to just accept the **** that your given!
For me what I have noticed over the past 3-4 games is that a number of players are showing signs of tiredness, lack of drive & on Saturday a loss of concentration. Not only are we short of cover/quality at CB we are also very short of cover up front & at full back, cressy & carlos have just about played nonstop this season, 90+ mins every game, chops with all his issues this season has been selected most weeks. That must start to take its toll at some point. I know some will say that is their job, how lucky they are, what about me, I work 5-6 days a week etc. etc...but then I would say, but how many days A/L have you had since August...? Another point is that we are now safe & our season has been pretty much over for a week or two, so what have they left to play for.? For us as supporters it would the pride etc. for playing for the club we love, for some of the squad though, they know they will be here next season, one or two others know they wonât be so that might be why they have stood out or raised their game of late. I am as frustrated as most on here with our lack of progress over the past 5-6 years, I don't actually think we are any further forward from the day ME walked into our lives. For me this summer is pivotal for Marcus Evans, Clegg & Jewell, although far from Jewells biggest fan I would admit he did inherit a club that had been completely ****ed up by the twat keane, but I would also say by the summer Jewell should have got rid of most of the dross brought in by keane (he also needs to offload a couple of his own flops as well) & should have pretty much his own team, then I think we can truly judge him, tactically at this time though I am far from convinced..!
Very good points Hoopers. I agree its very easy to critisize footballers when using tiredness as an excuse, of course scientifically playing so many games on the trot is going to take its toll!! But I certainly think this season at this point does definitely come into play!! Alot of our players have had stop start seasons, i.e Chopra and for many its their first full seasons or first prolonged period at first team level or at this level, JET & Drury and like you say Cresswell and Edwards have played nearly every game of the season!! I'd like to see perhaps some of the youngsters given a go as we don't really have anything left to play for now such as Whight, Lawrence, Ainsley & Carson, although trying to find the balance between just putting them in for the sake of it!! Everyone knew we needed defensive reinforcements but last summer we needed to strengthen in every single position, he did that in many of the attacking roles and at LB!! I can see he why he was unable to, we needed so many positions filled that we almost got what we could get. And like weighty says, January is a very difficult window to get decent players in for good money!! I think this summer, although we still need a fair few players to come in, it will be much more measured and there will be fewer last minute panic buys because we now actually have a base of quality to build from and its only at CB and GK that we desperately need players!! Attack wise, we can put out a strong team but still need more reinforcements as you say!! If we get an injury there's not a great deal of people to come in. I still think that over the summer we need at least 2 probably 3 attack minded players, probably 2 strikers and 1 winger!!! This also depends alot on what formation we are set to play, if we want to play 2 upfront we certainly need more strikers and also depends on what positions we will play JET and Martin in. As although JET has played well on the wing recently, I wouldn't mind seeing him eventually play as a 2nd striker, more centrally mainly because he will hopefully be given more of the ball!! Also if we play 2 upfront I don't think Martin would be able to play in the central role, he would have to be played wide. I still think even this summer won't be enough for us to be in a really strong position to push forward, either we will sign alot of players which will take time to gel together or we won't sign enough players a still be quite weak in various positions. I can only see us having a really strong squad next summer for us to really challenge for promotion in the 2013/2014 season (depressing I know)!!! I would agree that we certainly aren't any further forward than we were when ME came in, actually probably still catching up with the team Jim assembled but we are certainly further forward from the Keane era and I think we are further forward in terms of realising that you can't just chuck money at the situation!! Tactically Jewell does certainly have weaknesses but there aren't many managers at this level who don't, I can't think of a single Ipswich manager who hasn't had tactical weaknesses, I think he's good when he's on the front foot but not so much when we're on the back foot, which probably explains why we are either brilliant or rubbish, which I think many past ITFC managers have had this trait. However with a decent back line hopefully this will change!!
Got an idea people. Why dont we change managers everytime we get beaten. It would keep everyone on their toes and eventually we may get a manager that can go 46 games unbeaten and we will win the league with no problems. FFS I can generally see where the downhearted views come from but im beginning to think either this thread is a massive wum or some of our fans need to see a shrink asap. It was 1 defeat. ONE, not bloody 10. Reading lost to Peterborough last week, that was a bigger shock but Im sure their not all about to top themselves. Strange results happen in football and losing narrowly against Watford, who are in a similar position to ourselves isnt a disgrace. Man Utd in recent years have been beaten by the likes of Burnley. Arsenal and Liverpool have both gone through sticky patches so I assume you all think the likes of Sir Alex and Arsene are incompetent and dont forget it took Sir Alex a good few years of mediocrity before his vision came true so dont chuck the 'their success entitles them to a bit of slack' bullshit. Back to us, not long ago some on here were posting we were doomed for relegation, then 2 wins and we are going for promotion then 1 defeat and we may as well just have not bothered to enter a team this season as we are that useless. The sad fact, for me anyway, is that we havent actually had much in the ways of performance swings really. We have been a mid table championship side for 99% of the season. We have had the odd very poor display and the odd very impressive display but mostly we have been average but some can make out that we can outplay teams, lose to a stupid 30 second blip in an overwise good performance and complain that we are ****. The same people can say that we have had a brilliant game even if we have been completely outclassed and won with our only shot of the game. Its the result that matters at the end of the day and that is what will be recorded but when you are analysising the clubs form, ability, potential etc then you have to go beyond the result.
Strange results happen in football like a narrow defeat to Watford! Nothing strange about that! We haven't beaten them in 15 games FFS!
I think that some seem to think that we are far better than we actually are. We're in a similar league position to Watford for the simple reason that we are no better than them. Obviously, we want to be at the top of the table, and to do that we should be beating teams like Watford, but we just aren't good enough. Or more truthfully, we are good enough, just not consistent enough. Get that consistency along with 4, maybe 5 players and we could be ok. This result is by no means the end of the world. A top 10 finish (which is where I thought we'd probably finish anyway) is still well within our sights, and I think that would herald an improvement on last season.
Its isnt a strange result, not because they are our bogey team but simply because they are a decent team. I could have worded that better so I apologise for confusing but the point I was trying to make is that it is pointless basing your feelings on 1 result as blips can happen, even to the best teams. Your feelings earlier in the season had some sense behind them as we were on a very bad run but its harsh after 1 game where we did not get the result. Im beginning to think that some (not aimed at you JWM) actually wanted us to fail. They gave the team an almost impossible and definately unlikely task of winning 10 out of 10 to get us to the play offs. It was a nice dream and would have been a nice way to end the season but the play off have never looked a realistic goal so why push the argument that we can make it then go bloody made when the inevitable happens.
Tractorbhoy I have have never thought that we would reach the play-offs (see my post play-off predictor) but I thought that we would have stopped gifting points to the opposition! I am annoyed because we should have won that game easily. Watford weren't better than us we gifted them the points!
True, JWM but from what I have seen on the highlights it was yet another stupid individual error that led to the winning goal. Going back to another conversation we had last week - yet another mistake from the 'mr consistent' Carlos Edwards. Points dropped and annoying it may be but some off the responses on this thread have been totally ott.
