Match Day Thread Can town break the chain?

Might as well do a match day thread.

 

Think we may nick a late 1 nil win.
Sears off the bench after a through ball from the Bish

 

This is dire stuff first half from Town.

 

I'll change that, 2 nil to the mighty Fleetwood, and our season over with 10 games to go in Div 3

 

What happens when Chambers is in and Woolfy is benched.

 

If there’s a positive, it’s that Evans can’t get away with it much longer. Crowd are finally turning.

 

0-1 at the half. 0 shots on or off target. Anyone still believe in Lambert? Team selection is almost if he wants to get sacked. Maybe if I phone him up and tell him I’m Lionel Messi’s cousin (it worked with George Weah and Southampton) I’ll get a start up front on Saturday. Think I’ve more chance of scoring than Keane

 

Team selection surely shows how poor squad is

 

I don't think in the time ME has been here have I called for him to go but it's got to the point now where things are so bad, there needs to be protests against him (Not the manager)

 

Club needs a clear out from top to bottom. What does Lee O’Neil (if that’s his name) actually do. Love the club to be sold to someone who cares and have a club that I can be proud of

 

Lee ONeill is a local lad who is way out of his depth. Football as we know is all about contacts (and he has none) but I’m sure he gives everything he has.

 

I’ve seen some poor 45 minute displays at Portman Road, but the first half tonight really took some beating for its sheer ineptitude. This is the hands down the worst Ipswich Town team I’ve seen, and I hold this useless owner, this hapless manager, and this lot of pitiful, overpaid players responsible. What a truly sorry state of affairs, and there seems no improvement on sight. It’s genuinely tiresome to watch and borderline inexcusable why I can justify continuing to pay good money to watch this. I could expand on my thoughts more, but honestly - what’s the point? It’s the same old cr@p week in, week out.

 

I'm really not surprised tonight was the night the crowd finally turned on Lambert and Evans,enough is enough.............we want our Club back.

 

Sorry ptc but I think the manager has to shoulder the blame. He has to go, as does ME.

 

I will cut the players some slack, because

1) High earners get anxious too, money doesn’t make you happy and in fact it comes with its own pressures. Plenty of our squad are not wealthy and not earning life changing sums.

2) They are consistently hampered by the owner and the manager.

3) That was a horrible place to go to work tonight. At a big club, just outside the play offs in League One but with terrible form. At home against a decent side at a tiny club - it’s the highest amount of negative pressure a player will ever experience.

 

I'm not sticking up for Lambert, I just don't think changing the manager will solve anything, the squad hasn't been good enough for years and lack of investment year after year. We've had 6 managers since ME has been here, all bar McCarthy have failed and that wasn't great, they've all had promotion on their CV.

What's the point in changing the manager now when the squad is so weak. In general his recruitment has been good, it just hasn't been enough. Given the limitations of the squad and mess of the club when he took over it's difficult to judge him.

I just think what's the point in changing when it will be the same result with a different face. At least he had broad enough shoulders and experience to handle the pressure.

 

We might get a short term bounce and get into the play offs. Otherwise it’s definitely not happening with Lambert in charge. That would be the rationale.

 

I take your points, and maybe the immediate reaction from me after a game isn’t the most balanced (both good and bad games I see). But they looked completely inept out there. We’ve got players with hundreds of Champonship games under their belts. Ex Manchester United players, Irish internationals etc. These players should be used to a degree of pressure and expectation in front of big crowds. And while they’re not paid as well as footballers at the upper end of the English game, £8k a week for a few years is a lot of money, and more than almost all of this lot deserve. The negative atmosphere was toxic tonight, particularly at the full time whistle. Personally, I never boo the players, but I could understand why thousands were angry and frustrated.

I honestly believe Lambert has lost the dressing room - both in terms of his baffling team selection and the players attitude. For that, Lambert actually gets my sympathy a bit. This lot of players were quite happy to plunge the knife in Hurst’s back when results were poor. Looks like the same is happening again. While I wouldn’t blame the owner for firing Hurst when he did or Lambert tomorrow, it’s unhealthy that the players potentially have that much authority at a football club.

 

The biggest thing for me last night was just how utterly dreadful our general play was. Against what must be one of the tallest centre halfs in the Division we repeatedly lumped the ball upfield and almost without exception he was easily first to the ball.Yet we didn't try anything different.It was McCarthyesque in its stupidity and just about the only people in the ground who couldn't see that were our goalkeeper,defence and inept management team.

To give a debut to poor McGavin alongside Dozzell was effectively throwing them both under the bus from the outset.

The downward spiral shows no sign of ending.

 

Evening lads, just watched the replay, wish I bloody hadn't as that was ****in' garbage.

Apologies in advance if you are about to read this, it could be a long one!

It's too late at night to be this pissed off after watching a football match. For a game that Lambert himself said was a must win, this couldn't have gone any worse.

None of us here are football managers but I bet you we all know that you don't willingly make the 6 changes our manager did to a team in a must win game and expect a coherent performance. I feel sorry for Dozzell and McGavin because that was unfair on them tonight, set up for failure by a manager that has either completely lost the plot or is so smart he's trying to get sacked. The fans were already getting edgy so to pull a stunt like this is just bizarre.

The first half was unbearable to watch. Already after 15 minutes in, the atmosphere was gone from the game. There were no songs or chants to be heard and you could feel the crowd were just waiting for every bad moment to let their feelings be known, the tension was tangible. There was no encouragement from the stands as the fans in attendance waited for something to cheer about, there really wasn't anything. Fleetwood gained confidence with every passing minute as we were so unorganised with absolutely no threat that Joey Barton was able to make changes to his system on the fly to try and exploit us, knowing full well that we couldn't adapt. The more experienced players in the team didn't step up their game to counteract the foolishness of a middle pair of Dozzell and McGavin, I think that's one of the worst things I took away from the match, the lack of leadership and effort, it's like some of them just downed tools.
The goal came from poor defending from Chambers and a terrible attempt at a save from Holy from a pretty weak shot. Fleetwood hadn't exactly been peppering the goal but you could tell they were a drilled team and they kept possession comfortably. We offered nothing. I'm not being dramatic, we really offered nothing. Long balls were headed clear by the telephone pole CB of Fleetwood and there was no wing play to speak of. The decision by Lambert to choose this first eleven was not going well and not going down very well with the crowd, who were getting more restless with every backwards and sideways pass that was only just completed by the Town players.

The second half was really about Fleetwood seeing the game out without being too adventurous. They had already sussed that we're completely toothless and could well have played in a 2-4-4 system and still had no worries. We have an 'urgency button' that is pressed on 80 minutes every match which springs the players into life. They then try to play quick football in a sprint to the finish, kind of like a desperate boxer in the 12th round who knows he's lost the other eleven but thinks that a flurry of punches at the end will sway the decision. Bishop made a difference when he came on and it was good to see Simpson get half hour, unfortunate it had to be in a match with a restless crowd though.

I have to mention our throw ins again because we just don't do anything with them. Players don't hustle and bustle to make space and we lose possession fairly quickly after taking one. There was one from Wilson to Donacien today that just bounced off his chest and out for a Fleetwood throw, wasted and avoidable.

Holy - Poor for the goal but not that bad overall. Clearly pissed off all night because every time he had the ball in his hands and was looking for a quick throw out he found all the outfield players running away from him. The crowd didn't help with the murmurings but to me it looked like Tomas wanted to get the ball out quickly on occasions and couldn't.
Earl - best of the defenders today. As the game went on he saw the lack of attacking play and did his best to get involved.
Chambers - poor. At fault for the goal, he had a bad day.
Wilson - poor as an outside back. Caught out of position a few times he also made some terrible passes that went out for throw-ins. Woolfenden is so much better
Garbutt - terrible deliveries all night. Corners over the top of everybody and out for a goal kick or cleared by the first man. Luke shouldn't have a monopoly on the dead ball situations because to be honest, a lot of his have been poor recently. It also leaves us stupidly exposed when he his taking free kicks and corners from the right side of the pitch and we lose the ball.......all the time.
Dozzell - did ok but not enough experience and stability around him to free him up a bit. Guilty of always trying the same type of pass, Andre really needs to learn how to mix it up, he's one dimensional and needs to adapt to men's football. This isn't a kick around in the park.
McGavin - difficult to say much about Brett. He did his bit, showed some inexperience with chasing the ball too much but that was a terrible situation to put him in.
Nolan - I've got no time left for him now, he's had enough chances and adds nothing. He didn't complete one penetrating pass all night but made plenty of sideways and backwards ones. The crowd also noticed as they showed more and more annoyance towards him as the match progressed.
Donacien - played, did some stuff, hardly noticeable
Judge - no time for this big time charlie now either. Seriously, if you took the best parts of Nolan's and Judge's season and mashed them together you still wouldn't have a good player.
Keane - is not a striker! I've seen him now too many times lay the ball off in the box when he should be taking the responsibility and having a shot. I will no longer consider Will a striker, he doesn't have the instinct of shoot first, assist second. Just another mediocre #10, which for many #10s is code for 'not selfish/good enough to be a striker, can't cross, tackle or intercept the ball so can't play midfield'

All in all, that looked like an attempt to get fired. Surely no manager could think that that was the right way to go in this game. It wasn't a two finger salute to Evans about squad depth because he had Sears, Woolf and Bish on the bench, he wasn't forced into fielding that team. There were chants against both Evans and Lambert from the stands and I'm not surprised. Calls against Evans that could and should have been made months, even years earlier.

I hope that noise gathers volume because I want Evans gone and have done for a long time.