With west ham booing their team off despite winning against hull because of lack of flair and man utd fans complaining (as usual) just what are us fans looking for? Do we want exciting football with next to no trophys (aka arsenal) or results no matter what the cost In a perfect world we would want both but that's not going to happen personally I would love a team of 11 Suarez's not just for scoring goals but for his passion and commitment, his work rate is just incredible I realise that being this close to the play offs results are everything but which would you rather watch from beginning to end of every season, dour football which results in boring 0-0 or 1-0 wins or fast attacking football and not winning very often Bit of a problem when you think about it
Good post. I think the answer is that people want both. An enjoyable spectacle and a win. Unfortunately this isn't sustainable. Sometimes you win scrappy and sometimes you lose against the run of play.
I think like a lot of things in life, it's all about balance. Unless you have the wprlds best 11 in your team, then you are not going to go gung ho attacking and win every game. Playing good football, the traditional Ipswich way is what we should all hope and expect - nothing more, nothing less. You need to look at the models in place at places like Southampton, and Swansea - where they like to have a mixture of home grown players, and some experienced heads in the team - so it can be done on a shoestring budget (yes, they have spent a lot lately, but they got into the premier playing good football and not splashing the cash) So, to answer the question, i want neither - i want to see us progress every year, i want to see "our own" play in the first team, and i want us to beat Norwich every year and finish above them - is that too much to ask for?
Cause for debate Yorkie. If it meant success winning ugly wouldn't bother me. Sure most of us remember George Graham's boring boring arsenal. But they managed to win things. I agree we'd love to see free flowing,score 3 goals a game football but we don't have the personnel for that. So I'll take grinding out results.
I was just about the right something very similar stretchyboy, it's all about balance. The thing I like to see is an Ipswich team going out there trying to impose their game on the opposition to get the 3 points like we did under Burely, Royle and initially Magilton, attacking the opposition trying to get the 3 points and if we don't fair enough but by the same token you need that backbone whereby if you're not playing that well you really dig in and get results which those teams did do. I accept that we're not going to play good attacking football every match but my problem is when grinding results out is the style of play. Life is about appreciating moments and look back at that 5th place finish a few years back, what special moments they were and a big part of that was because of our style of football and how wherever we went we tried to attack teams whoever they were and that was part of why we were so successful. My best memories of town of the past few years were when we played the most attractive/attacking football the Burely seasons (except the last one, although even that had it's moments) Royles gung ho approach and the season under Jim where we were nearly unbeaten at home all season. Not many teams win things by grinding out results, they might get out of this division but will you look back with pride and have fond memories of grinding out results getting to the PL and probably years of scrapping away in the PL? I honestly think I'd take a season how Blackpool had a few seasons ago where they went and attacked the opposition and went down with their heads held high, they had such an exciting season over doing what Norwich are currently where they just look plain average but are every season just keeping their heads above water. As I've said before why do we want our academy players doing technical work with the ball and learning about passing and moving when our first team don't it. The reason we want our youngsters to be coached like that is because that is how they will improve and be the best that they can be, so why is the philosophy not continued to first team level as players don't stop learning suddenly when they reach the first team. I agree sometimes it can go too far where you have style over substance, just looking at us under Jewell we attacked so much that our defence was so all over the shot at the back we collapsed and actually looking at the Arsenal performance against Chelsea it reminded me of us under Jewell, they were 4-0 but still trying to attack when Chelsea inevitably got the ball back they were just left with 2 CBs left defending which is a recipe for disaster. I think a good adage is 'defend as a team and attack as a team'. IMO we currently defend as a team and it's probably the best I've ever seen us do this as an Ipswich fan, this is something we perhaps didn't do under Jewell and certainly Arsenal do not do but IMO we do not attack as a team under Mick, we keep it tight and hope that Williams, McGoldrick or Cresswell will pull something out of the bag or a set piece. We're very rigid when we don't have the ball which is good but this doesn't seem to change when we get the ball.
What we'd do for a winger like Currie now though, neither of those would get in a McCarthy team though. It's frustrating though because we see what he does with average players it'd be great to see if he really had patience with these more talented players and see how they turned out
Over the short term as Weighty said its all about results for me, if we can scrap our way into the top flight this season by playing so called ****e football then so be it. We need to get rid of our debt, one season alone in the top flight will do that, then we can re-build from an even footing with a sound financial background & hopefully bounce back playing a more attractive brand of football to boot.!
I agree with this entirely.I'd be interested to know if those calling for "results at all costs, however ugly" put their money with their mouth is and pay to watch the Town regularly.The fact that attendances at Portman Road continue to remain low despite us having our best season for several years does to a degree reflect how people perceive the "entertainment" on offer.
Load of old nonsense. The two things are not mutually exclusive and pretty football doesn't always make for entertainment. I'd rather watch West Ham this season than Bore-celona and Yawn-sene Wenger's Walcottless Arsenal side. Newcastle play attacking football but since the Ba / Cisse partnership was broken up they've been dire to watch. Watching Chelsea this season is akin to watching paint dry. Manchester and Merseyside are providing the entertainment this season. SO very simply, for the neutral we want entertainment (not the same as pretty football) and as fans we want titles, cups, derby wins and beating the big sides / big days out (Arsenal cup semi - great night) first and neat football second. You can say what you want about our improvements but not having titles and not having neat football either is where we find ourselves at the moment. A big day out at Wembley this season, win or lose, would give us all what we want. A seventh placed finish or a play off semi final defeat wouldn't. And the reason for that is the football is **** so titles, cups, derby wins and beating the big sides / big days out have to happen for those bums to get back on those seats.
A goal or clean sheet can change a fans complete view of a game, I was at a game earlier in the season can't remember which one and these two blokes near me started by having a whinge about our defence that we are scrappy and such like, second half and we are leading 1-0 with a couple of minutes to play and these two blokes suddenly decide that Smith and Chambers are ready to play premiership football.
Balance is the key. Any quality team (at any level) needs scrappers and fancy dans to cover both bases. It goes right back in history: Leeds had Lorimer and Hunter, Chelsea (when they weren't preoccupied with annexing Crimea) had Osgood and Ron 'Chopper' Harris. The Town that I followed as a kid had Mariner and Hunter, Brazil and Butcher, Muhren and McCall. In the Premier League we had Stewart and Mowbray. You have to have one to let the other do its job effectively, which is why Manchester United did so well, and the Liverpool squad is nearly there now. The Ferrari players are great, but they can only hit 200 mph if the bus is parked round the back.
Think Hampy hit the nail on the head. Its about entertainment, in whatever form. Attendances do remain low but they were falling under pretty football. Taking away the narratives and emotional attachment from all sport, it's just knocking a ball around a field however pretty the football is no-one gets the same excitement from watching any team but their own. Arsenal and Chelsea fans will have very different opinions on whether their game was entertaining, but they were both watching the same thing. Fans will always generate some excitement and tension of their own, ours is the current proximity of 6th place, and from now on whenever the three points are coming our way 99.9% of us will not be able to help ourselves from excitedly triple checking every other score to see if we've crossed the line - it doesn't matter how were coming about those points. Similarly any last minute set pieces we get will have us all on the edge of our seats. If and when we get to the premier league, we will draw the same "tension/excitement" from watching the trap door and/or the glamour games against the top clubs. and every close season the question will be "Europe this year?"
You can't beat the feeling of a win, dislike the feeling of losing. I'm sadly not a regular at PR anymore but I still love that winning feeling over anything else. Even the scrappiest goal in the ninetieth minute that gets the win gives me the same feeling as a well worked one.
Although I agree purists football isn't neccessarily the most entertaining it is usually the case or at least a team who can play abit and attack. For example under Royle we didn't play that great football in terms of purists term, we were very direct, there was alot of long balls from defence, we starting playing on the second ball but we could play and did and we were very attacking so it was entertaining. But you're right Hampy their not mutually exclusive although I would say there is a general trend just like playing spoiling football may not mean getting results. What I would say is when you do lose you often come out of the game with a few more positives if you play good football than how we play atm, we have less patience when it goes wrong and we don't play good football. Results are of course important but I have left games we've won whilst feeling pleased with the result not impressed by our efforts and visa verca. I've left games where we've been really positive had a real go at the opposition, you get the feeling we're going in the right direction. I left some games after seeing us win under Keane feeling really deflated because we were terrible but I remember under Burley, Magilton or Royle us having a real go at the opposition and whilst we lost feeling a sense of pride that at least they put their all into it and went for the juggular. I do miss the Burely days though, anyone remember the last 10/15 minutes of games if we were ever losing or drawing we'd just through the kitchen sink at the opposition and it would be that sustained pressure, edge of the seat stuff!!
I've witnessed this so many times, it was a bit like this to be fair in the Brighton game, we were pretty poor all game but got the win, everyone was saying how poor we were up until we scored and it was a superb performance and vica versa I've seen us play really really well but not get the result we deserved and we're all crap etc to be fair it happens on this board all the time haha
