Match Thread Ipswich v Coventry Match Thread (13 Viewers)

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CCFC88

Well-Known Member
TownFan81 said:
Our players are completely done.

They know Lambert is going and they are not playing for him. They know the playoffs are effectively gone and they have given up for them. As the old cliché goes they are already on the beach.

I cannot overstate how bad we are. In the last 22 matches, only the bottom three have a worse points per game. In a game Lambert described as 'must win' Tuesday, we took 85 minutes to have a shot on target, only our second effort of the night.

With Jackson and Norwood injured we have no attacking threat. We have no midfielders that are capable of scoring regularly. We have no real identity and Lambert has pretty much upset every player this season. He has regularly dropped 5 or 6 players even after a good performance or a win and the atmosphere in the dressing room is really not good. The players aren't playing to impress this manager or even the next one. Nobody has any idea if they will be here next season, either from being out of favour, out of contract or wondering if the club will try and move them on due to their wages being too rich for a League One club.

To reach the playoffs we need two wins more than three in-form teams when we are 20th from 23 teams in the form table. I can honestly see you winning by four or five Saturday. I appreciate that some teams down the bottom put a performance in out of nowhere, but we are set for a disappointing mid-table finish, the most patient fans in the country have turned on the owner, manager and players and they simply do not want to be out on that pitch.

There's not even a semblance of pride. It's a team that has given up that, in the absence of a new manager being appointed, have nothing to play for. Very depressing times and the attendance Tuesday reflected that. 18000 - 20000 all season immediately dropped right down to 15000! Not even a small reduction but fans essentially giving up because they can see the players have.
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Any of your players injured or not that could do a job in the Championship next season?
 
T

TownFan81

Well-Known Member
CCFC88 said:
Any of your players injured or not that could do a job in the Championship next season?
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We have been missing Norwood in the last few games (likely out for the season now) and Jackson stupidly got sent off for a stamp so has two more games to serve. Flynn Downes, has been our best player this season, and he also picked up a ban as well.

Luke Woofenden, the only other player in contention for player of the season, was inexplicably dropped on Tuesday for three completely immobile centre halves, who funnily enough didn't deal particularly well with Paddy Madden.

Only Downes and Woolfenden look Championship quality. Both could easily end up in the Premier League. Woolf is like Adam Webster on the ball and Matt Clarke off it. Webster has ended up at Brighton with Clarke, the latter loaned to Derby. Both he and Downes are class and I expect will leave for £2m-£3m each in the summer to a top half Championship side. We may get to reinvest about 10% of the funds but most likely they'll just plug the losses.

The only other players who look remotely able to cut it, if we'd have gone up are Luke Garbutt (on loan from Everton) who was class for the first half of the season but has been very poor lately and Kane Vincent-Young, who was embarrassingly good in his first few games before getting injured. Losing him coincided with our loss of form. He's back in training and could feature at the weekend.

If we'd have gone up we'd have been humiliated. We really aren't one of those sides that has players than can step up which probably explains why we've dropped like a stone.
 
Philosoraptor

Philosoraptor

Well-Known Member
Town, will you be going on Saturday?

If not, you are more than welcome to join us all here for the debacle on Saturday.

It can be lively.
 
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TownFan81

Well-Known Member
Philosorapter said:
Town, will you be going on Saturday?

If not, you are more than welcome to join us all here for the debacle on Saturday.

It can be lively.
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Unfortunately I will suffer through it. Barely missed a home game in 40 years. I only miss a game every couple of seasons I'd guess.

Last time I missed back to back games in 1995-96. We won 5-1 (can't recall who against) and 5-2 (Oxford) as part of three games where we hit five (the other being Norwich 5-0).

No matter how bad it gets you just never know! The same year Man Utd beat us 9-0 we won at Anfield for the first time. We'd failed to win there so many times when us and Liverpool were going for the title, yet the year we went down with one of our worst teams ever we won there. Even going back a few years to a pretty poor match where you equalised in the 96th minute through Richard Wood and all our fans streamed out, I stayed and saw Counago win it for us 10 seconds after the restart.

I can't imagine ever not going, even Saturday when I fear it'll be very similar to the 4-1 defeat to Posh. You've got a highly motivated team in form and we've given up. It will get ugly and to those of you fearing it'll be a banana skin - it won't.

Other clubs would get a reaction after Tuesday but we won't. We don't have the personnel fit for it.
 
tskezz

tskezz

Well-Known Member
Ill throw this out there and hold not much hope, but does anyone have a spare they can part with?
 
S

SkyBlueCRJ

Well-Known Member
TownFan81 said:
Our players are completely done.

They know Lambert is going and they are not playing for him. They know the playoffs are effectively gone and they have given up for them. As the old cliché goes they are already on the beach.

I cannot overstate how bad we are. In the last 22 matches, only the bottom three have a worse points per game. In a game Lambert described as 'must win' Tuesday, we took 85 minutes to have a shot on target, only our second effort of the night.

With Jackson and Norwood injured we have no attacking threat. We have no midfielders that are capable of scoring regularly. We have no real identity and Lambert has pretty much upset every player this season. He has regularly dropped 5 or 6 players even after a good performance or a win and the atmosphere in the dressing room is really not good. The players aren't playing to impress this manager or even the next one. Nobody has any idea if they will be here next season, either from being out of favour, out of contract or wondering if the club will try and move them on due to their wages being too rich for a League One club.

To reach the playoffs we need two wins more than three in-form teams when we are 20th from 23 teams in the form table. I can honestly see you winning by four or five Saturday. I appreciate that some teams down the bottom put a performance in out of nowhere, but we are set for a disappointing mid-table finish, the most patient fans in the country have turned on the owner, manager and players and they simply do not want to be out on that pitch.

There's not even a semblance of pride. It's a team that has given up that, in the absence of a new manager being appointed, have nothing to play for. Very depressing times and the attendance Tuesday reflected that. 18000 - 20000 all season immediately dropped right down to 15000! Not even a small reduction but fans essentially giving up because they can see the players have.
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Interesting thoughts. It just goes to show how quick a club environment can become toxic really if things aren't going the right way. I can understand the thought process behind Evans giving Lambert a long term contract, but you just can't do it these days as I personally think it causes a manager to take his foot off the peddle.

You say you have no attacking threat but I think Keane when used right is a big threat for you. Although at the minute it's clear you're attempting to pump balls up to him when he can't head a ball, so rendering him useless. Do that against our backline and he'll just be terrorised all afternoon come Saturday. Equally, you've got some threats in midfield. E.g. Sears, Dozzell. Judge worries me when on set pieces too as we struggle at times when trying to defend from them. Sunderland last week we nearly conceded 2-3 goals just from corners/free kicks so I think that will certainly be something Lambert will be looking to capitalise on if he's done his homework.

That's very poor really - but still I don't think we will beat you by 4/5 as we haven't won by such a margin all season. Not sure what it is but we just struggle to score lots of goals - and is probably why we've drawn so many games.

Yeah unfortunately I don't think you'll make the play-offs - especially if we do end up winning tomorrow as there'll just be too much work to do. The top 6 don't seem to be slipping up much (bar the odd result) so you'd have to go on a pretty impressive run to even come close really.
 
S

SkyBlueCRJ

Well-Known Member
SkyBlueDom26 said:
Still nearly 30 odd points to play for, anything can happen yet
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The issue is, they'd have to turn around their near-on relegation form into automatic place form pretty much now. That's a huge ask for a team that is completely shot of confidence, a manager that doesn't seem to know who his best side is, and a lengthy injury list.

Equally, to rub salt into the wounds they have played 2 more games than Fleetwood, Portsmouth and us and 1 more than the rest of those in the play-offs. It'll be quite a turnaround if they managed it.
 
T

TownFan81

Well-Known Member
SkyBlueCRJ said:
Interesting thoughts. It just goes to show how quick a club environment can become toxic really if things aren't going the right way. I can understand the thought process behind Evans giving Lambert a long term contract, but you just can't do it these days as I personally think it causes a manager to take his foot off the peddle.

You say you have no attacking threat but I think Keane when used right is a big threat for you. Although at the minute it's clear you're attempting to pump balls up to him when he can't head a ball, so rendering him useless. Do that against our backline and he'll just be terrorised all afternoon come Saturday. Equally, you've got some threats in midfield. E.g. Sears, Dozzell. Judge worries me when on set pieces too as we struggle at times when trying to defend from them. Sunderland last week we nearly conceded 2-3 goals just from corners/free kicks so I think that will certainly be something Lambert will be looking to capitalise on if he's done his homework.

That's very poor really - but still I don't think we will beat you by 4/5 as we haven't won by such a margin all season. Not sure what it is but we just struggle to score lots of goals - and is probably why we've drawn so many games.

Yeah unfortunately I don't think you'll make the play-offs - especially if we do end up winning tomorrow as there'll just be too much work to do. The top 6 don't seem to be slipping up much (bar the odd result) so you'd have to go on a pretty impressive run to even come close really.
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The playoffs are gone.

We need to catch three teams that are a couple of wins ahead of us and statistically speaking, on past seasons, we'd need to win 7 or 8.

To catch Fleetwood alone, who have 11 games left, we'd need to win 7 of 9, if they won 5 and lost 6 of their games and that's assuming we could overtake Oxford and Peterborough as well.

The issue with Lambert is that he doesn't use Keane properly. He is great with the ball at his feet when he can turn and play the likes of Jackson and Norwood in. We don't use him like that.

Judge has been absolutely awful since we signed him a year ago, bar his first few games and a couple this season. As for set pieces, Garbutt has been atrocious lately having been a threat all season. After every poor game he's had he has then been great for the next few, so hopefully he does provide some modicum of danger tomorrow.

As for Dozzell I wouldn't worry about him. It's hard to explain but he's absolutely terrible in our side. He would be brilliant in a Championship side with quality, perhaps even a Premier League team. His footballing brain is phenominal, he sees things other don't but he's made to look terrible because nobody else is on his wavelength.

Three times on Tuesday he played 30 yard, eye of the needle, no look, defence splitting passes than our forwards didn't even think was likely to come their way so watched them go out for goal kicks. He's the best player I have ever seen made look awful if that makes sense. It would be like having Usain Bolt in the last leg of a primary school relay race where every other team has finished before he gets the baton. He's just completely wasted but he does little defensive work so doesn't help himself either, because it's then very easy to justify not playing him.
 
T

TownFan81

Well-Known Member
SkyBlueCRJ said:
The issue is, they'd have to turn around their near-on relegation form into automatic place form pretty much now. That's a huge ask for a team that is completely shot of confidence, a manager that doesn't seem to know who his best side is, and a lengthy injury list.

Equally, to rub salt into the wounds they have played 2 more games than Fleetwood, Portsmouth and us and 1 more than the rest of those in the play-offs. It'll be quite a turnaround if they managed it.
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The biggest cock up this season (there have been many) was postponing games for internationals - just ahead of the needless rotation.

We were 7 points clear of 3rd with 2 games in hand at one point and we cancelled Rochdale, Oxford, Fleetwood amongst others. Oxford were on a shocking run when we would have played them, but by the time we faced them they had won 5 out of 6.

The ridiculous thing was when the games were rearranged we didn't use any of the players who had been called up!

We had Judge (Ireland), Georgiou (Cyprus), Dobra (Albania), El Mizouni (Tunisia), Dozzell (England) and when we played the rearranged matches none started and a couple were unused subs!

We should have just played the matches (especially as Lambert was rotating 5 or 6 players per match anyway - so postponing them made no sense unless it was a settled side getting tired) and we'd have probably opened up a big enough lead that we'd have kept winning as a result of confidence and other teams playing into our hands by being less offensive.

Instead, we allowed games in hand to build up and others caught us. By the time we played our games in hand we were out of form, others had caught us and we squandered them all.
 
S

SkyBlueCRJ

Well-Known Member
TownFan81 said:
The playoffs are gone.

We need to catch three teams that are a couple of wins ahead of us and statistically speaking, on past seasons, we'd need to win 7 or 8.

To catch Fleetwood alone, who have 11 games left, we'd need to win 7 of 9, if they won 5 and lost 6 of their games and that's assuming we could overtake Oxford and Peterborough as well.

The issue with Lambert is that he doesn't use Keane properly. He is great with the ball at his feet when he can turn and play the likes of Jackson and Norwood in. We don't use him like that.

Judge has been absolutely awful since we signed him a year ago, bar his first few games and a couple this season. As for set pieces, Garbutt has been atrocious lately having been a threat all season. After every poor game he's had he has then been great for the next few, so hopefully he does provide some modicum of danger tomorrow.

As for Dozzell I wouldn't worry about him. It's hard to explain but he's absolutely terrible in our side. He would be brilliant in a Championship side with quality, perhaps even a Premier League team. His footballing brain is phenominal, he sees things other don't but he's made to look terrible because nobody else is on his wavelength.

Three times on Tuesday he played 30 yard, eye of the needle, no look, defence splitting passes than our forwards didn't even think was likely to come their way so watched them go out for goal kicks. He's the best player I have ever seen made look awful if that makes sense. It would be like having Usain Bolt in the last leg of a primary school relay race where every other team has finished before he gets the baton. He's just completely wasted but he does little defensive work so doesn't help himself either, because it's then very easy to justify not playing him.
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Yeah like I said above that would be a pretty impressive turnaround from what can probably be labelled as near-on relegation form. It's just more than likely not going to happen given the amount of time left and certain teams (E.g. Fleetwood) hitting serious form.

Oh is it Garbutt that takes your set pieces? I thought Judge took a few against Fleetwood on Tuesday...whoever it was they looked a threat in dead ball situations.

I suppose he's another that's rendered useless if he doesn't have the right players around him then as now he more or less has no one to lay off balls to/bring into play.

That was a little bit like a player we had last season - Tom Bayliss. He wasn't awful last season in League One by any stretch but I personally thought he struggled initially with the step up and didn't have the effect on games the fans knew he could have. Fantastic footballing brain though and had bags of talent. He's at Preston now and despite not having any game time was getting quite a bit of praise from Alex Neil until he picked up a season ending injury.
 
S

SkyBlueCRJ

Well-Known Member
TownFan81 said:
The biggest cock up this season (there have been many) was postponing games for internationals - just ahead of the needless rotation.

We were 7 points clear of 3rd with 2 games in hand at one point and we cancelled Rochdale, Oxford, Fleetwood amongst others. Oxford were on a shocking run when we would have played them, but by the time we faced them they had won 5 out of 6.

The ridiculous thing was when the games were rearranged we didn't use any of the players who had been called up!

We had Judge (Ireland), Georgiou (Cyprus), Dobra (Albania), El Mizouni (Tunisia), Dozzell (England) and when we played the rearranged matches none started and a couple were unused subs!

We should have just played the matches (especially as Lambert was rotating 5 or 6 players per match anyway - so postponing them made no sense unless it was a settled side getting tired) and we'd have probably opened up a big enough lead that we'd have kept winning as a result of confidence and other teams playing into our hands by being less offensive.

Instead, we allowed games in hand to build up and others caught us. By the time we played our games in hand we were out of form, others had caught us and we squandered them all.
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Just goes to show momentum is so important when trying to keep a run going.
 
torchomatic

torchomatic

Well-Known Member
I think we need to be careful. I can't see Ipswich losing two home games in a row.
 
torchomatic

torchomatic

Well-Known Member
TownFan81 said:
The biggest cock up this season (there have been many) was postponing games for internationals - just ahead of the needless rotation.

We were 7 points clear of 3rd with 2 games in hand at one point and we cancelled Rochdale, Oxford, Fleetwood amongst others. Oxford were on a shocking run when we would have played them, but by the time we faced them they had won 5 out of 6.

The ridiculous thing was when the games were rearranged we didn't use any of the players who had been called up!

We had Judge (Ireland), Georgiou (Cyprus), Dobra (Albania), El Mizouni (Tunisia), Dozzell (England) and when we played the rearranged matches none started and a couple were unused subs!

We should have just played the matches (especially as Lambert was rotating 5 or 6 players per match anyway - so postponing them made no sense unless it was a settled side getting tired) and we'd have probably opened up a big enough lead that we'd have kept winning as a result of confidence and other teams playing into our hands by being less offensive.

Instead, we allowed games in hand to build up and others caught us. By the time we played our games in hand we were out of form, others had caught us and we squandered them all.
Click to expand...

Judge was ace at Brentford. What happened?
 
T

TownFan81

Well-Known Member
torchomatic said:
Judge was ace at Brentford. What happened?
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Combination of things.

He actually broke his leg at Portman Road for Brentford and arguably has not been the same since.

He's also had a huge amount of personal issues, with his young daughter back and forward for operations. He almost moved back to QPR and Warburton in the summer, which never materialised but he seemed to want, which would have made all the hospital stuff easier.

For whatever reason he's been terrible this season. As a human you have to have sympathy because he's a wonderful player on his day so likely the other stuff has taken over the football, but as a fan he shouldn't be anywhere near the side. He got two against Burton and we hoped he'd turned a corner but it doesn't seem so.
 
T

TownFan81

Well-Known Member
SkyBlueCRJ said:
Yeah like I said above that would be a pretty impressive turnaround from what can probably be labelled as near-on relegation form. It's just more than likely not going to happen given the amount of time left and certain teams (E.g. Fleetwood) hitting serious form.

Oh is it Garbutt that takes your set pieces? I thought Judge took a few against Fleetwood on Tuesday...whoever it was they looked a threat in dead ball situations.

I suppose he's another that's rendered useless if he doesn't have the right players around him then as now he more or less has no one to lay off balls to/bring into play.

That was a little bit like a player we had last season - Tom Bayliss. He wasn't awful last season in League One by any stretch but I personally thought he struggled initially with the step up and didn't have the effect on games the fans knew he could have. Fantastic footballing brain though and had bags of talent. He's at Preston now and despite not having any game time was getting quite a bit of praise from Alex Neil until he picked up a season ending injury.
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Garbutt has taken most corners and scored a few direct from free kicks. Judge is the other one that takes set pieces, usually when Garbutt is having a mare like he did on Tuesday.

Judge did put some decent balls in on Tuesday but his delivery this season has largely been a lot worse than he's capable of.
 
Ring Of Steel

Ring Of Steel

Well-Known Member
Good club, Ipswich- after the weekend I hope they do well, turn it around & get into the playoffs. Easy to forget now but in the early 80s they were a team to be properly afraid of.

In terms of us v them my only real worries are a combination of "after the lord mayor's show" for us and a stubborn "we'll show those fuckers" fighting display by them. We saw it ourselves so many times- crowd getting restless, pressure on and they suddenly decide to make a statement & play really well.
 
Gibbo

Gibbo

Well-Known Member
TownFan81 said:
The playoffs are gone.

We need to catch three teams that are a couple of wins ahead of us and statistically speaking, on past seasons, we'd need to win 7 or 8.

To catch Fleetwood alone, who have 11 games left, we'd need to win 7 of 9, if they won 5 and lost 6 of their games and that's assuming we could overtake Oxford and Peterborough as well.

The issue with Lambert is that he doesn't use Keane properly. He is great with the ball at his feet when he can turn and play the likes of Jackson and Norwood in. We don't use him like that.

Judge has been absolutely awful since we signed him a year ago, bar his first few games and a couple this season. As for set pieces, Garbutt has been atrocious lately having been a threat all season. After every poor game he's had he has then been great for the next few, so hopefully he does provide some modicum of danger tomorrow.

As for Dozzell I wouldn't worry about him. It's hard to explain but he's absolutely terrible in our side. He would be brilliant in a Championship side with quality, perhaps even a Premier League team. His footballing brain is phenominal, he sees things other don't but he's made to look terrible because nobody else is on his wavelength.

Three times on Tuesday he played 30 yard, eye of the needle, no look, defence splitting passes than our forwards didn't even think was likely to come their way so watched them go out for goal kicks. He's the best player I have ever seen made look awful if that makes sense. It would be like having Usain Bolt in the last leg of a primary school relay race where every other team has finished before he gets the baton. He's just completely wasted but he does little defensive work so doesn't help himself either, because it's then very easy to justify not playing him.
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It would be like having Usain Bolt in the last leg of a primary school relay race where every other team has finished before he gets the baton...is a great line
 
Gint11

Gint11

Well-Known Member
jordan210 said:
Im more nervous about this one than the Sunderland or rotherham match.

This has banana skin written all over it. Portman road isn't a happy hunting ground for us. But hopefully we keep focused and get the job done
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I hear ya but we’ve won there already this season so psychological advantage with us I feel
 
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