I stand by what I said in my rang the other night, I'm not very hopeful. It wasn't said in the heat of the moment - I thought long and hard before typing a kind of tirade on here. Derby H looks tough. We ALWAYS get a result there, 6 wins from 9, 3 draws... so they must hate hosting us. However, they often pick up wins on our patch. Nugent LOVES a goal vs us. Derby look in the hunt for automatic, and I can see them finishing 2nd. Bristol City may be flying right now, however a two legged semi vs Man City won't help them in the long run. Fortunately for us, Boro ' entertain ' Villa in Pulis vs Bruce. Crikey, two 'pragmatic' results men if there ever were two - I guess along with Mick + Warnock in this league. Style of play second please boys........ We now have NINE, yes NINE Cms out at the time of writing - * Huws/ Dozzell/ Hyam - first two out for the season, the third may just aswell be.......... nice £££ if you can get it eh!? * Bishop ( poor Ted cannot get a break......) Bru ( apparently free to leave ) Skuse ( a starter, like or loathe ) * Nydam / Downes have done well when given a chance...... Adeyemi - will the boy EVER get fit on a regular basis!?!!?!? Utterly laughable. Our injuries this season have been absurd, and really aren't helping us achieve anything. On the flip side, nor is Mick starting Sears who clearly MUST leave in January with Celina on the bench until 85. Now, bench the lad by all means. He was gash at Wolves, as was Garner. Both I found very poor live, especially 'big Joey G'. However, at HOME, to 18TH PLACED QPR, 85 is clear as day too late. I don't see a positive result here I'm afraid. Have this down as Ipswich 1............. Direby............2 with us needing to go to Fulham and win to get us back to 5/6 points. Hope I'm wrong, however think given our injury list vs their side......... it's a bit of an ask.
Like you Westy, I'm not optimistic about this match. Three days after Derby, we have an away trip to Fulham who have completely outplayed us in the previous two matches between the sides. It is likely that come next week we'll be firmly in mid-table. I struggle to see us being consistent enough to challenge for the top six, particularly as McCarthy has said that, yet again, the budget is empty for the January transfer window. The board appear to be sitting on their hands until the summer, when McCarthy will likely depart, so they can support their new man with increased funding. However, we are still in for a top six spot this season and, with the right reinforcements, we may be able to launch another play off campaign. The team selection was a bit off yesterday, Celina and Spence over Sears and Iorfa every day of the week for me. I realise that the injury problems in midfield are very difficult to contend with, particularly over the busy festive period. I hope we have our strongest defence out and our midfield duo of Connelly and Skuse back. I'm not a massive fan of Skuse, but I felt we missed him yesterday and he has been a lot more consistent this season compared to his previous two.I'd then play Celina and Ward out wide, McGoldrick in the centre behind Waghorn. I feel Garner needs a break because he has struggled to score and make an impact in the last several games (Reading aside) and Ward deserves a chance in his natural position out wide, where he has looked good for us before. He isn't a central midfielder, but unfortunately looks set to play there on the weekend if Skuse isn't fit. We may be able to scrape a 1-1 draw, but my head is going for a comprehensive 2-0 defeat. As an aside, but I notice that Bart has been again linked with a transfer away. Crystal Palace are apparently looking at him and, given their goalkeeping problems, it would make sense for them to wrap up a cheap(ish) deal of £3-4m for a first choice keeper, considering Bart's contract situation is still unresolved. I think it would be a massive blow to our promotion chances (and not just for this season), if we were to offload Bart for such a cheap price. It's the classic Marcus Evans model though, isn't it? Offload a key player for millions to keep the club ticking over. Unfortunately for us, Geaken is not a top Championship goalkeeper, and we would likely slip back down to lower mid-table.
2-1 loss. Garner annoys me, you can see that when he receives the ball he is always shaping up to fall over and win free kicks. When the ball is in the air he bends over just as it arrives to make it look like he was pushed. I'd prefer it if he tried to take the ball and do something with it. I think ref's are getting wise to it.
Good posts all 3! Bleak outlook in a word. My biggest concern has and will be the Health/Injury/Sports training/ recovery/rehab programmes that are in, or not in place at ITFC. One top thing as a club, any club, any league, to have buttoned up and funded with the best skills & knowledge & consultants behind the scenes, is your lavishly expensive and endulged pro players bloody well fit to play game after game, every 7 days! To have some of our best & talented young players - 8 of them, all midfielders where we need the most creative, dynamic, defensive players who can dictate the match outcome - out for weeks, months or half a season, is nothing short of careless and unprofessional. If I was a director, and I wish I was with my best 606 ers around!!, I would be asking serious Qs. Another lacklustre home performance, and a defeat, then we do indeed spiral down to the basement and No further interest zone. But, a big but (!!) if we scrape a draw or 3 pts, then we still lurk around the top 6. Amazing league this.
From the only time I've seen him at Wolves, totally agree and found him a liability / extremely limited player. If Bart is to go - we need upwards of £7 mill to even consider. Going to be an uphill task today - Nugent's bound to score...
Morning ladies, hope y'all had a great Christmas! Today i think..... we may get tonked! Can't wait for season to end, yet again and i pray that will be it for MM but i have a horrible feelig the stubborn git is gonna haunt us for a few more seasons yet!
My Son has just been into the Fanzone at the ground and he bumped into Kevin Beattie and stopped to have a chat with the great man. Anyhoo the strong rumour doing the rounds is that Palace have put in a bid for Bart at £5 Million! Watch this space I guess!
Doom and gloom, doom and gloom i tell ya! Gerken it is for the rest of the season, provided he recovers from injury! Joy to the world, i dont rate Gerks at all, Bart is no world beater but he is far better than Gerken! Cant see any money being reinvested, will just be swallowed up by the ever increasing debt!
Confess to going out at half time, bike around town and forget the miserable performance (1st half) out of my head, and thinking, that's it, lost any hope, do i really want to prolong the agony, why should we pout ourselves thru this s...t year after year. Return to laptop 5pm and, see, well, Garner the absurd ballerina/prima donna gets a goal and did we give it a go 2nd half? McG added to our ' attack' where he likes behind the frontman...another bleedin injury... Tell me please, should I be bothered?
Only 1 point from the last 3 games and I honestly can't see us getting anything against Fulham. Worrying times! If Bart leaves in Janusry then we will really struggle. Happy New Yesr!
That was garbage! I'm fed up of watching these tactics and can't wait for Mick to be gone. Our number 9 is on corners and free kicks and if he's the best we've got at dead balls then we suck. I lost count of the amount of times we passed to nobody at all. Bart must've read my post from the last match because he threw the ball out a lot today, well done. Derby were fluent and their players were very mobile, always open to receive a ball or moving when they didn't have it.
Games like this really show up our lack of quality, apparently the Derby squad cost in excess of £50M with Lawrence costing £9M which means we can't compete no matter how much team spirit we have. To be fair we are badly hit by injuries but even so we get outclassed on a regular basis when we come up against a top team. I'm as disappointed as anyone else with the standard of football we produce which is why I didn't renew my season ticket, but I realise it's not going to Improve for as long as the pathetic level of investment in the playing staff continues, as someone said to me recently " the horse from the milkmans cart can never win the Derby " and that's just about where we are and where we will stay while Evans owns this Club.
