The top v bottom derby. Away.

After another loss, we go to Norwich next Sunday. Before we play, Bolton / Reading and Rotherham will have all played - however that does right now appear academic. True though!

We're in consistent form, 7 defeats in 8. Perhaps we're better on the road I hear you cry? No. Lost our last 8!

The only crumb of comfort I suppose we have is football is a funny game, it's a derby, and indeed anything can happen.

Do I think it will? Not really, no - but you never know so can only live in hope!

C O Y B.

 

It will go one of two ways....we'll do a Watford/chaplow on them or it will be a mauling...
My money is on an embarrassing defeat. Probably 5-1

 

I think it will be a mauling but I can’t see us scoring. 4-0

 

I like the idea we throw the game and only have it recorded as 3-0!

 

Worryingly this has banana skin written all over it.

 

I just want this terrible season to end. This underinvested squad of journeymen, budget buys, has-beens, and never-has-beens is easily the worst Ipswich side I’ve ever seen. One of the poorest summer transfer windows in memory has led to this, as well as our owner’s repeated failings and years of hoping a “self sustainable” football club, a naive notion in this day and age, will be competitive.

What’s worse, we’ve rightly replaced Mick McCarthy, but gone on to wrongly identify not one, but two successors.

This match against Norwich has come at the worst possible time, as they jump to top spot and we remain marooned at the bottom of the table, effectively nine points adrift. Like many others on here, I presumed we would be resigned to relegation back in December, but the unfolding reality doesn’t make it feel any better. What’s worse, this could conceivably be the last derby match against Norwich for a few years.

A routine 2-0 defeat is my prediction. I doubt Norwich will even need to get out of second gear.

 

Norwich won't settle for 2nd gear. They'll want to inflict as much pain as possible on us, and rightly so, we'd do the same.
The only way we'd get something out of this, is if they think they just have to turn up.
If I was in charge, I'd bring in Vinnie Jones and Pearce in to give the team talk.

 

Or Terry Butcher?

 

If there ever was a coupon buster waiting to happen this is it. I just hope the walls don't come crumbling down.

 

It really wasn’t just the summer window. The January transfers were an absolute farce and Lambert is completely inept.

 

What January transfers? All loan players who will be off again in May

 

I’m interested to know what calibre of player you were expecting, Hampy, considering our league position, our cheap owner, and the fact a majority of our summer transfer business consisted of duds and failures. Based on the few games the new signings have actually played, I’d argue Collins, Judge, and Keane look good. Elder and Quaner look hopeless. Dawkins looks a waste. Bree had a decent debut. Compare that to Hurst’s lot ....

 

Would have been better just not to sign anyone apart from Judge and Collins and perhaps Bree given our weakness at right back and that Donacien isn’t going to get a look in. I wasn’t impressed with the others when we signed them and I’m even less impressed now. Complete waste of money and resources and we have better in the squad.

Would have preferred to give others a good run in the side. Judge is an improvement on Nolan but even then he’s playing out of position.

 

I'll go for a weird 2-1 win just so that I can be the only one to say they predicted a win

 

Evans gave the game away in his big interview.

He said you can either have £15k for a salary or £1-£1.5m for a transfer and £7.5k for a salary.

Because occasionally we sign a player for that who proves to be decent he thinks it’s a reasonable blanket transfer policy.

 

We'll get no higher than League One with those figures and they will get smaller once we're relegated.

I read a great post from Karl's dad on twtd (page 5 of the match report comments) talking about the state of the stadium etc which really highlighted Evan's level, or lack of, investment. He noted things like we're probably the only club in the top two tiers who still don't have electronic advertising, something I've been banging the drum about for years already.

Our club feels like it's being run like a mafia laundering front. Just enough cash used to keep it operational and in business but no more.

Evans, just **** off already!

 

Oh he'd happily do just that tomorrow if there was a buyer - there in lies the problem.

As for this season, christ.

However, one thing has dawned on me today - Lambert is Jewell 2.0.
* Too many loanees........... check.
* Losing for fun............. check.
* Trying to play good football when don't have a team capable of doing so.......... check
* Comes across as a likable nice person you'd have a pint in the pub with............ check

As for Hurst v Lambert this season - while delighted Hurst left, not happy with how Lambert's gone about things. Sod free bus tickets etc, play the game any given way to survive - do the pretty stuff at a later date. Yes some fans may have moaned but give me 21st this season anyday over almost certain relegation. We were just four points off safety believe it or not with 31 games to play when Lambert took over - sure the squad was pants, morale was a state I get all this but that is not an unreachable number of points given the remaining games to play.

 

When the decision was made to make a change we were level on points with 21st and 2nd bottom. Not great but a ridiculous time to decide to make a change. And then to time it with the Millwall, Reading and Preston games. Absolute suicide. I did not expect us to be so terrible but I did know we’d probably had it anyway after two games of Lambert’s.

 

Right, so Lambert's first two games = Draw draw. That really show's we've ' had it ' ? A bit lost by that.

Especially given we were ahead in both games, and first half at Reading were superb.

 

Not Lambert's fault Westy, but failing to win any of the three (at that time Preston were in the mix for relegation and as poor as the others) cast us adrift when it should have been our best run of fixtures of the season and an opportunity to pull away. We took a big gamble to make the change before those three - the Millwall game with a caretaker is almost a 'gimme' and then either you get a new manager 'bounce' or everyone has to adjust and you hurt your chances of getting a result in the other two. So we then found ourselves adrift at the bottom and with a much tougher run of fixtures ahead and a manager who had a track record of failure. It wasn't hard to see how that was going to end up panning out.

Statistically at that point I gave us a roughly 20% chance of survival based on similar scenarios that unfolded in previous seasons at the bottom of the Championship. I did expect us to get far more points on the board even under Lambert, but I did not expect three other teams to be struggling so badly along with us. Now we look like we will be lucky to make it to 30 points and in most other seasons we would be looking at a 20 point deficit by the end of the season. Incredibly we are still not entirely out of it because Rotherham, Bolton and Reading are showing equivalent form albeit with a few more points on the board. Town still have a chance of survival if we win the remaining head to heads with Reading and Bolton still to play.