After last night that's now 5 straight home wins! At last we have begun to turn Portman Road back into the fortress of old. I know some of you will moan about the performances and how we have been fortunate but just bear in mind that we have earned all 15 points even while sometimes not playing well. Not many teams will fancy a trip to our place with this run we are having! I think that we have left it too late for the play-offs as we will need 75/76 points which equates to another 8 wins. That would really take some doing and we have our bogey team to contend with on Saturday. It now puts the agonising losses against Forest and Reading as well as the Blackpool draw into sharp focus! We have to suffer yet another season of "What If's and maybe's" but since the thrashing we dished out to West Ham the players have just oozed self belief and determination. Our poor record against Watford surely has to end sometime so why not Saturday? Just one other quick thought, I hope that Luke Hyam will get the nod on Saturday for Leadbitter. Its been a disgrace imo that he hasn't even made the bench since Brighton.
JWM - you certainly appear to have turned the tide recently, but reading a lot of fans' posts, you are not entirely happy with the style of play! Do you think PJ now has the credentials to push on from here? Sincere best wishes in honour of Hampy's post on the SBR thread!
Some of our lot expect us to win every game at a canter by 3 or 4 nil! Already today I have seen posts on TWTD basically saying that Burnley were poor and that's why we won! What a load of bollocks and people who write such tripe obviously don't know a lot about football! Our play especially in the second half didn't allow Burnley to play, we dominated the possession and we should have scored more. I am delighted with the win and I would have taken 1-0 before the game. This team has definately started to prove me wrong and I really hope that my opinions on Jewell will be proved wrong in the long run. Its easy to get carried away and being a Town fan, I will clutch at any straw but the play-offs are out of reach for another year. I want to sit back now and watch us play some decent football and finish as high as we can.
Not a fortress and for me nowhere near 1. IMO a fortress is somewhere where others fear to tread, a place where we are likely to keep a clean sheet and feel confident of a win. We are making steady progress but you dont turn from being bloody useless to turning your ground into a fortress in the space of a month and we still concede far too many poor goals to use that term. These forums seem to leap from dispair to ott joy based on 90 minutes. A bit of steady progress is a lot more important for the future of the club than the rollercoaster that this season has been so far. Some need to take a longer term view of whats happening
not complaining JWM, just dont think that equals fortress status. Just good old fashioned improvements!
I agree that we are making steady progress and not before time! Our home form has been dreadful up to January so it's nice that we have suddenly turned our home form around. It will be vitally important from now on and leading into next season that we remain a tough prospect for any visitors to Portman Road.
jwm i'm with you on getting hyam in for saturday. he's been unlucky to be out of the squads the last few games but to be fair to PJ he's given leadbitter a chance whose taken it. bowyer and hyam on saturday for me.
I would love to see Hyam play on a more regular basis but to be fair with two positions up for grabs and the experience of Leadbitter and Bowyer, the vision of Drury and the potential of Hyam its a lovely position for the club to be in. Its unlikely you would put such a limited player as Hyam on the bench. What he does, he does very well but he can only really play the holding/ defensive role well but Bowyer and Drury can offer move versatility which is required as we only have 4 outfield players to go with. I just wish we had a similar problem at centre back!
thats a good point tractorbhoy, if hyam doesnt start then he offers very little from the bench. you can add stevenson to the list aswell, hopefully he might be given a couple of starts before the end of the season to show what he can do for next year. and if you add bullard who hopefull might pull his thumb out at last then we have very strong options in the centre of midfield!
I'm still not happy with the five subs rule. Sure, you can only make three subs in a game but it does limit your choices somewhat. On top of that, it hinders the development of younger players who can't even get match day experience by being on the bench because you always have to play it safe and have more experienced players to call upon.
To help clubs cut their wage bill by not having to have as large a squad. The thinking was that some clubs, even in the lower leagues, can afford to pay the wages to have a full 18 man squad of quality players whereas most sides can't. Take even £5k each off your wage bill for two players and you've saved half a million.
cheers for that lancs! check out what the wigan fans used to sing about paul jewellio, could still be a while before he deserves that me thinks! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ynZYP2dtvSc
I thought that was the good thing about most of our recent performances that we have deserved to win most of our matches playing decent football. I'm glad to see you are gradually (hopefully) changing your mind on Jewell or at least willing to give him a chance JWM, probably why some fans are dissapointed is because they don't like being proved wrong about him and therefore don't want to admit it, so pick up on any negative they can. But I'm always right so I cannot sympathise with these guys I think playoffs are probably a bit far off mainly because the number of teams between us and the playoffs. Like I said in my predictions for this season we would have a bad start(although I didn't think as bad as we did) and have a late surge for the playoff just missing out. tbh I now think we will be lucky to finish in the top 10, i'd be pleased to finish just in the top half though because in a way I don't want people to think we are suddenly going to be promotion contenters next season. As tractorbhoy says steady progress is needed, we want to progress too quickly, we want to evolve or if we do eventually get up we want to stay up with the core of the same team we would of had getting promotion!! I have to agree on the hyam front, would like to see him back in the team again but I can understand with 5 subs why other more attacking players are chosen ahead of him.
