With exception of the CB's today, I don't think we played too badly tbh (I know I will get slaughtered for saying that)!! I'm not a fan of starting with 1 upfront, but we looked lively playing this formation and in an attacking sense looked to be working, we were creating chances and playing half decent football. The biggest problem today was the shocking performances from the CB's, if Sonko and Collins had played this game I am quite sure we would have won it. Delaney is probably the worst CB I have ever seen at the club, he has all the physical attributes to be a good CB but positionally is awful and chases the ball rashly diving in far too often, once again he showed this in abundance today. Ingimarsson didn't exactly do himself any favours today either, he has lost his legs and clearly is not match fit, although not the answer, I don't think he's a bad player. For the first goal today Delaney as always left his marker to chase the ball, meaning the guy who he was marking was completely free to score, it was awful defending. The 2nd goal once again Delaney, rather than sheparding the player decides to commit to the tackle and then completely gets skinned leaving a massive hole in the defence. The 3rd goal wasn't as bad, looked a good header to me, although the player should never really be beating 2 CB's in the air. ALB- didn't do much wrong, but not alot right either. Can do a job but we will need another goalkeeper. Edwards- not a bad game, sometimes more worried about attacking than defending which means we get caught out of position, fortunately Martin worked hard enough to get back and stay with his marker most of the time Delaney - Awful defender, only good thing is he is half decent in the air. Ingimarson- Poor game, although after playing with Delaney did not help ease him back in. Cresswell - Poor game by his standards, although he wasn't that bad. His crossing was nowhere near as good as normal and was beaten alot down his side. He looked jaded. Martin - Decent enough game, looked lively and worked hard, unfortunate to come off. Leadbitter - waste of space. Did not have a bad game but doesn't do enough. It annoys me when fans get on the back of players for passing sideways and backwards all the time but by god this is all he does. He was the sitting midfielder but never offered himself for the ball, Drury did this far more often. In the first half when we had the ball out wide, there was never any player to pass to in the CM. Even if Andrews and Bullard have bad games, the good thing about them is that they always offer themselves as an option for a pass. Bowyer - looked much more lively that I've seen him in the past and more up for the game until getting injured. Murphy- looks a solid player and does a job for the team outwide although guilty of missing a few good chances today. Drury - I hope we see more of him, was very good today, mixing industry with a bit of imagination. Looks like the loan move has done him good, when I've seen him before he always looked like he was trying to impress too much and often went for the trick pass and lost possession, but today I thought he was very good. JET - Very good performance again today, like Drury could often be guilty for trying to do to much but today he seemed to know when to play the simple pass. Deserves to stay in the team. SUBS: Chopra - Doesn't look confident atm, can see why Jewell left him out tbh. Carson - Decent enough, not involved too much though Ellington - I actually thought he looked the best I'd seen him since coming, thought he showed some good touches and good strength. Thought he'd scored with a header. Overall we created alot of chances and IMO was a decent attacking display just couldn't put it in the back of the net, this was overshadowed however by some of the most inept defending I have ever seen, it was just awful. 2 CB's must be a priority in the transfer window, if we get 2 decent CB's in, I'm confident we will be fine this season, if not I will be worried.
Well considering that we conceded a goal in the first 5 minutes to a team that hadn't scored in the last 10 hours of football, yeah we played really, really well and Paul Jewell should be made to sign a 10 year contract!
I though JET held the ball up well, other than that I am still utterly unconvinced by him. I actually though the opposite on the simple pass issue, in the first half Murphy was in acres of space and JET ballooned a no hoper of a shot over. Second half the same, and even a simple throw in and knock back situation he tried too much and lost it. Bags of potential and showed his strengths winning the penalty but I fear that his occasional flashes of brilliance mask the fact that for major periods of the game he is very non-effective. Drury, pleased to see him start, one of the few players to offer himself as an option, most look nervous on the ball whereas Andy looked decent. He should stay in the centre, preferably with someone other than Leadbitter who offers very little and is incredibly weak on the ball. I thought Edwards showed plenty of desire to get forward, just a shame that means we are left open at the back every now and then as a result. Pffff, can't bring myself to moan any more, it's a dismal time to be a town fan... and it worries me to say that even though all fans seem to think they know better than the manager or club in general, but I genuinely feel that most of us on here possibly would have rectified more of the issues with the team than so far have been!
ptc You must have pretty low expectations if you think that we didn't play that badly today! I bet you were all excited about losing to Reading on Saturday or managing a draw against Leicester! I think it says it all when Drury who is a League 2 standard at best is our man of the match!
I don't have low expectations i just have the capability unlike yourself to express a objective view rather than getting caught up in the moment and ranting for the sake of ranting, saying everything's s**t but not actually expressing why it is like it is or looking deeper into it, just that its s**t.
2 CBs has been a priority since......THE SUMMER...not that this has not been mentioned before.! PTC overall a decent summary of today’s game, although I think you are being generous with regards to your comments on JET, at times very good, more often though poor, JET did well for the pen, but countered it buy putting a shot in row Z, seat 1, when he was clear to run into the box. Today’s performance for me highlights why Jewell has to go, Drury was MOM, been frozen out on loan overlooked by PJ all season, comes back in today to everyone’s surprise and puts in the best performance from a Town player, granted he did not have much to beat. That leads me to ask why the likes of Hyam, O'Connor, Peters, Murray & Carson are not involved at all or more often. If that was not bad enough PJs tactics, changes etc. today were poor to say the least. We are the joke team of the Championship, no make that the football league, Forest not scored in 7 until today, then they go & bag 3, there must be teams queuing up to play us every week..! Fingers crossed for press conference in the morning...Give Osman the job to the end of the season, priority a couple of CB’s & Andrews to sign & use the youngsters being frozen/pushed out..!
I have written posts many, many times on why we are **** and what needs to be done to change things for the better. We have become rotten to the core and until ME realises that Clegg is a complete football ****** things will not begin to get any better. Just one example: I know for a fact that Shaun Derry was in Roy Keane's office willing to put pen to paper 2 years ago and Clegg somehow managed to balls up the deal. Thanks to Clegg we now have a dozen players whose contracts will expire in the summer and we will have to go through the whole rebuild process yet again. We are Ipswich Town FFS, why should we be happy with the way things are being mismanaged?
Well, I suppose that’s a reasonably encouraging summary ptc, given that I’m sure PJ’s going nowhere unless he gets the hump and resigns. Drury needs a decent run in the Championship – the bloke on the Radio said he was solid (and probably our best player) without actually creating much (c/f the Hollywood balls he was accused of during his last brief appearances); that will hopefully come once he gets used to it here and he starts doing what he was just doing for Crawley or whoever it was.
How is it that ****ers like Leadknob get to play every week while some others don't get a look in? Drury may come good, if he has a sustained run in the team. Same could be said for O'Connor, Hyam, Peters and Ainsley. This method of using ex prem players is not working.
I thought JET was MOM, best I've seen him play. He looks like he's improved alot since he first started in terms of workrate, fitness and decision making, there's still a lot to do but he looks to be improving. Lets make it clear Leadbitter wasn't the reason we lost today, he wasn't great but he didn't have a bad game, he didn't lose the ball alot and saw a fair amount of it but he was just completely inaffective and just never moved in the right positions to make himself available for the ball!!!
Leadknob playing was probably the reason why we didn't score though. If you can't get the ball to your strikers how do you expect them to score?. Oh yeah, and him playing keeps someone else out of the team, that's reason enough for me.
True Leadbitter can't be blamed for the loss, but he certainly didn't do anything to help us get back in the game. Sitting in front of the back four and playing the ball out is about as much as he can manage unfortunately. Weak on the ball, every time he attempts to make some sort of forward run he seems to lose the ball. Going back to JET, possibly not enough decent runs from him, often checked back and passed sideways rather than making a driving run which should be his strength, unlucky with the volley off the bar obviously. If Jewell does go, do we think he will, new manager given the funds, or faith in Jewell? Will it be beneficial? I can absolutely see why people are calling for Jewell's head, I think personally I am on the fence, a case of, his sacking wouldn't shock or particularly upset me, but just never sure in this situation of a new man at the helm will improve things or just cause such a stir that things go form bad to worse...
JET ran Drury close to MOM today, although that was because the rest were S#1t3, it probably was one of his better games on the back of a half decent performance at reading. He needs to push on from these 2 ok showings & turn in some consistantly good displays from now to the end of the season, is it likely, I doubt it.
I thought with the exception of Drury and ALB the whole team were abysmal. We all know about the normally bad players - the captain, Delaney, Ingi, Edwards - and Cresswell had a below standard game for him. JET has talent but only shows it for 30 seconds a game - either show it constantly or get dropped as we cant afford to play with 10 men every match. Martin has talent but no end product, Bowyer is nowhere near the player which done very well for Birmingham last season and Murphy, who I normally hate, was most probably our 3rd best player, which says something about our performance. To show a bit of fairness, If you look at the Forest team on paper it is amazing how they went on such a run. They have a lof of talent in that team and especially in attacking positions. Just like I dont think our losing streak was a true example of our team, I also think Forest had a false run of games. As I have said several times before the transfer window is a great hinderance in changing a teams fortunes and we have had to stick with what weve had for a long and worrying time. I have given Jewell the leeway as he had limited options but if we dont sign a RB or a CB in the next few weeks I may start to really worry.
Drury was my man of the match, but sorry this was by default, apart from jet the others need not have bothered. Did not think Drury could make it at this level, but yesterday was much more convincing considering he had to switch roles. The two centre backs gave the worst performances I have ever seen at Portman road, Ingermarson is finished at this level, far too slow, Delaney is a very poor reader of the game, and gets dragged out of position, which leaves us exposed. Cresswell had one of his worst games for us, and was beaten for pace on occasions. Leadbitter was his usual self, all huff and puff, and no end product. Mr crab, or Mr sideways if you like. A lot was made of the fact that we started with one up front, but Forest did as well, and scored three goals. Its how good your players are, within any system that counts. We need to get players in with passion, pace and endevour, and Jewell needs to create more balance in the team, ship out the dead wood, Peters, O'connor, Ainsley, and Smith.
Indeed BUT look where Derry ended up! He helped QPR win the Division last year and he's still playing for them in the Premiership!
