Premier League - Ipswich Town vs Bournemouth Preview & Matchday Thread

[marko69]

Just read that there was a medical emergency in the directors box at the Ipswich v Bournemouth game.

Another reason why Muric shouldn't be doing what he did.

(Hope whoever it was is now ok)

[Bluemike]

It was Simon Milton, recovering at home

[MMJR67]

Maybe it's me. If our central midfield was better, our back 4 would look better.
If we had quality and speed on the left in front of Davis, we are better.
Love Chaplin, glad scored but his size, speed and quality not
Premier league. Taller, faster more physical required.
With these changes we could easily be in the top ten.
All of this in my perfect world. Money required.

Not mentioning Muric, you already know.

We are currently a great championship team.
Not a bad thing, been great seeing Town playing
Top clubs for a change.

[Blue Wilf]

Maybe it's me. If our central midfield was better, our back 4 would look better.
If we had quality and speed on the left in front of Davis, we are better.
Love Chaplin, glad scored but his size, speed and quality not
Premier league. Taller, faster more physical required.
With these changes we could easily be in the top ten.
All of this in my perfect world. Money required.

Not mentioning Muric, you already know.

We are currently a great championship team.
Not a bad thing, been great seeing Town playing
Top clubs for a change.

Not sure if you were at the game today MMJ(?) but Chaplin was actually great today in my view. He was called back to help manage Semenya in the second half which left their number 10 with too much space but it wasn't Chappers fault. I think the Szmodics, Chaplin, Hutch 3 across the middle is the best we have at the club at the moment (who are fit) so am reluctant to see that changed. I too thought Chaplin would be too lightweight for this league but I think he has note than proved his worth. He is a battler and had a great first touch. In the past 5 or 6 games played, he has been a breath of fresh air.

[MMJR67]

Maybe it's me. If our central midfield was better, our back 4 would look better.
If we had quality and speed on the left in front of Davis, we are better.
Love Chaplin, glad scored but his size, speed and quality not
Premier league. Taller, faster more physical required.
With these changes we could easily be in the top ten.
All of this in my perfect world. Money required.

Not mentioning Muric, you already know.

We are currently a great championship team.
Not a bad thing, been great seeing Town playing
Top clubs for a change.

Not sure if you were at the game today MMJ(?) but Chaplin was actually great today in my view. He was called back to help manage Semenya in the second half which left their number 10 with too much space but it wasn't Chappers fault. I think the Szmodics, Chaplin, Hutch 3 across the middle is the best we have at the club at the moment (who are fit) so am reluctant to see that changed. I too thought Chaplin would be too lightweight for this league but I think he has note than proved his worth. He is a battler and had a great first touch. In the past 5 or 6 games played, he has been a breath of fresh air.

I have seen every game , this is a reflection of all games. I like Chaplin,he trys hard. He just happened to fill that spot this week.
The position in general is what I am referring to, not hard to see.
Did you see my, " in my perfect world comment. ". ?

Appreciate your opinion truly. Thats mine.

[Blue Wilf]

Maybe it's me. If our central midfield was better, our back 4 would look better.
If we had quality and speed on the left in front of Davis, we are better.
Love Chaplin, glad scored but his size, speed and quality not
Premier league. Taller, faster more physical required.
With these changes we could easily be in the top ten.
All of this in my perfect world. Money required.

Not mentioning Muric, you already know.

We are currently a great championship team.
Not a bad thing, been great seeing Town playing
Top clubs for a change.

Not sure if you were at the game today MMJ(?) but Chaplin was actually great today in my view. He was called back to help manage Semenya in the second half which left their number 10 with too much space but it wasn't Chappers fault. I think the Szmodics, Chaplin, Hutch 3 across the middle is the best we have at the club at the moment (who are fit) so am reluctant to see that changed. I too thought Chaplin would be too lightweight for this league but I think he has note than proved his worth. He is a battler and had a great first touch. In the past 5 or 6 games played, he has been a breath of fresh air.

I have seen every game , this is a reflection of all games. I like Chaplin,he trys hard. He just happened to fill that spot this week.
The position in general is what I am referring to, not hard to see.
Did you see my, " in my perfect world comment. ". ?

Appreciate your opinion truly. Thats mine.

No probs - am not sure Chaplin (despite playing well) would be in my perfect world midfield either! We have what we have I guess and need to strengthen for sure. Keeper, right back, midfield/wing strength and a striker all spring to mind. Hope springs eternal

[MMJR67]

Not sure if you were at the game today MMJ(?) but Chaplin was actually great today in my view. He was called back to help manage Semenya in the second half which left their number 10 with too much space but it wasn't Chappers fault. I think the Szmodics, Chaplin, Hutch 3 across the middle is the best we have at the club at the moment (who are fit) so am reluctant to see that changed. I too thought Chaplin would be too lightweight for this league but I think he has note than proved his worth. He is a battler and had a great first touch. In the past 5 or 6 games played, he has been a breath of fresh air.

I have seen every game , this is a reflection of all games. I like Chaplin,he trys hard. He just happened to fill that spot this week.
The position in general is what I am referring to, not hard to see.
Did you see my, " in my perfect world comment. ". ?

Appreciate your opinion truly. Thats mine.

No probs - am not sure Chaplin (despite playing well) would be in my perfect world midfield either! We have what we have I guess and need to strengthen for sure. Keeper, right back, midfield/wing strength and a striker all spring to mind. Hope springs eternal

totally agree that .future is still bright

[ATB]

Muric messed up for the equaliser.. no doubt.. but this result was unfortunately entirely McKenna's fault.

By the end of the first half we had majority possession and Bournemouth I don't think had registered a shot on target.

By the end of the match Bournemouth had 57% possession, 22 shots and 6 on target.

Making changes so late in the game allowed Bournemouth to grow in ascendancy and left us on the back foot. We were getting slaughtered in the middle of the park.

Then to just make 3 attacking changes and stick to the formation was absolutely the wrong move.

Look at how Notts Forest and Palace defended their lead. Forest had at times 11 players behind the ball. They parked the bus and gave us nothing. Palace was not dissimilar.

I suppose the idea was to bring on 3 players to help keep the ball up in our attacking half but none of the subs are that sort of player.

I think we should've brought on Al Hamadi for Delap, Cajuste and Phillips for Hutchinson and Smozdics and had Greaves on the bench and brought him on for Taylor (is Greaves injured again???).
That would have us playing a 3-5-1-1 formation with 3 CBs, 2 Wing Backs, 3 CMs and Chappers behind Al Hamadi.

We need to defend leads in the PL, not try and put games to bed with so much attacking play

[ITFC2024]

Nice to see Chaplin get his first Premier League goal.

I’m just curious, a thought for all you folks hating on the Premier League…if indeed we do get relegated (which we probably will because our squad isn’t strong enough and we have a buffoon for a goal keeper) do you just want us to be a very competitive team in the Championship and just miss promotion? Maybe getting beat in the playoffs? Or, will you want us to bounce back and get promoted again…to the Premier League you hate?

Just curious.

[Bluemike]

Muric messed up for the equaliser.. no doubt.. but this result was unfortunately entirely McKenna's fault.

By the end of the first half we had majority possession and Bournemouth I don't think had registered a shot on target.

By the end of the match Bournemouth had 57% possession, 22 shots and 6 on target.

Making changes so late in the game allowed Bournemouth to grow in ascendancy and left us on the back foot. We were getting slaughtered in the middle of the park.

Then to just make 3 attacking changes and stick to the formation was absolutely the wrong move.

Look at how Notts Forest and Palace defended their lead. Forest had at times 11 players behind the ball. They parked the bus and gave us nothing. Palace was not dissimilar.

I suppose the idea was to bring on 3 players to help keep the ball up in our attacking half but none of the subs are that sort of player.

I think we should've brought on Al Hamadi for Delap, Cajuste and Phillips for Hutchinson and Smozdics and had Greaves on the bench and brought him on for Taylor (is Greaves injured again???).
That would have us playing a 3-5-1-1 formation with 3 CBs, 2 Wing Backs, 3 CMs and Chappers behind Al Hamadi.

We need to defend leads in the PL, not try and put games to bed with so much attacking play

It's often McKenna’s fault.

[ATB]

It's often McKenna’s fault.

Perhaps, but this one I think was the worst. No excuse to not batten down the hatches with 10 minutes to go and holding onto a 1-0 lead.

[Bluemike]

Same as the first half at Brentford, 2 up and going gung ho for a third with 5 minutes to go, its ridiculously bad game management, might look easy on the eye but the League table certainly doesn't, he can't win games at this level, unfortunate but true.

[ATB]

We are so bad in second halves this season.

We have lost 7 points after half time.
That is to say that if the game finished at half time we'd be on 16 points this season.

(if the game finished at 43 minutes we'd be on 19 points)

We have only scored 3 second half goals in 15 matches. That is 12 matches without a goal in the second half!

[Ricco]

Yeah ATB, it's an illusion that we're competing, when in fact we are burning ourselves out too soon.

I always give New Zealand rugby as the example, teams often works their arses off and manage to stay with them for an hour and you think there is a game on, a possible shock happening. Then inevitably the effort catches up with them and New Zealand stick 20 points past them in the last 20 minutes, it was never a close game, they were never going to get anything, it's an illusion, happens time and again.

That's why we need 5 at the back, at least late on if not from the off, we can't defend with 4 when exhausted. We've tried, we've failed with 4 at the back, 0 wins, 6 draws and 7 losses is pretty good evidence of that, despite the fact we have looked good and not out of our depths.

[Steve and Jo]

Can blame the manager as much as you want for losing this game, but he wasn't the one who came charging out like a mad man out from his goal when plenty of Ipswich players around and not much of a goal threat. Fact is if Muric stayed where he should of been then fairly unlikely they would of scored

Now far as keeping with this keeper is concerned is another subject, I wouldn't, he's too erratic for me. Yes he does claim the ball well and he is a good shot stopper but he is likely to make a howler any minute and quite frankly I don't think we can afford the points dropped

[Bluemike]

Steve, good to see you posting, Muric is just one part of the problem and yes it's a massive problem, for me our game management more often than not is poor and naive, at times it's atrocious.

Add to that the rigid use of subs at certain times, yesterday being a classic case in point, the insistence having no CB on the bench is bizarre in itself, to see games out you throw another big towering defender on to hopefully shore it up, what did we do, we threw on Jack f**king Clarke for God sake.

Back to Muric 5 loans in 5 seasons prior to Burnley, then performed like a clown for them before getting dropped which is why I said back in July he was a naff signing, still we spend Millions on him despite him shipping goals through crap errors for fun .
3 at Man City
1 at Brentford
1 v Man Utd
1 v Palace
1 v Bournemouth
There are most definitely more, his distribution is Sunday morning quality and his decision making is lower than that, but still we play him irrespective, if he plays against Wolves McKenna deserves everything that is coming his way.

[Charnwood]

What we don’t know Mike is how good or bad Walton is performing in training. Non of us wanted him in goal at the start of the season and we all wanted a new keeper. By all means give him a try but don’t expect him to solve the problem. In truth we probably need a new keeper but FFP rules won’t necessarily allow us to spend what is needed and therein lies the problem.

I only watched the game live yesterday and I haven’t seen any replays from yesterday but without jumping down my throat I suspect when I get round to it Muric was probably lured into his crazy mistake by being exposed down our right flank by some pretty sloppy defensive work. As I said early in the game Ben Johnson, just like Harry Clarke always looks like a mistake waiting to happen and often gets caught out of position or easily run rings round.

[hallamblue]

Nice to see Chaplin get his first Premier League goal.

I’m just curious, a thought for all you folks hating on the Premier League…if indeed we do get relegated (which we probably will because our squad isn’t strong enough and we have a buffoon for a goal keeper) do you just want us to be a very competitive team in the Championship and just miss promotion? Maybe getting beat in the playoffs? Or, will you want us to bounce back and get promoted again…to the Premier League you hate?

Just curious.

I would want us to be one of the strongest teams in the Championship, beating teams most weeks, and watching our players playing with confidence and flair. I would want us to get promoted again, as this is all income for the club and I would even advocate 2-3 years of being a yo-yo club as we would gradually get stronger year on year. Then , if we’re able to hold our own in the PL it’s might not be such a farce that it is now. But I will always hate the plastic nature of the PL, ( the face holding, platoon style falling to the ground and rolling over and over and over following an innocuous tap on the ankle by a Town player). This happened time and again yesterday by Bournemouth players, and to his credit the ref simply ignored them, yet they still rolled around for several minutes before getting up to make a sprint for the ball!! VAR is farcical and is nothing more than yet another official who’s not even on the bloody pitch influencing decisions. It makes a mockery of the game. So no, I hate PL, but if it’s there and it will make my club stronger by getting into it , I’ll go with it. Do I enjoy going to games this season? No.

[Steve and Jo]

Steve, good to see you posting, Muric is just one part of the problem and yes it's a massive problem, for me our game management more often than not is poor and naive, at times it's atrocious.

Add to that the rigid use of subs at certain times, yesterday being a classic case in point, the insistence having no CB on the bench is bizarre in itself, to see games out you throw another big towering defender on to hopefully shore it up, what did we do, we threw on Jack f**king Clarke for God sake.

Back to Muric 5 loans in 5 seasons prior to Burnley, then performed like a clown for them before getting dropped which is why I said back in July he was a naff signing, still we spend Millions on him despite him shipping goals through crap errors for fun .
3 at Man City
1 at Brentford
1 v Man Utd
1 v Palace
1 v Bournemouth
There are most definitely more, his distribution is Sunday morning quality and his decision making is lower than that, but still we play him irrespective, if he plays against Wolves McKenna deserves everything that is coming his way.

Cheers Mike, had continuing health problems then trouble logging in as using a new PC and somehow lost old logging in details. Thanks to Dave (Frosty) for all his help in reconnecting me

Mike I couldn't agree more far as the goalkeeper is concerned. Sometimes Muric looks great and maybe saved us from losing points but overall he's cost us. I didn't think up until the blood rushing to Muric's head defensively we were too bad. We all know goals changes games and as soon as this happened we just gave everything, every reason for Bournemouth to win

[hallamblue]

I think Chaplin is ideal as a number 10 at this level. He rarely if ever takes more than two touches of the ball, and always seems to find the pocket of space in the box to get his shot off. What more do you want from a #10? The only other player I’d consider for that role is Szmodics. Strange our illustrious manager can’t seem to see the qualities of both these players fro that role, when it’s always been that role for these two players!

[Bluemike]

What we don’t know Mike is how good or bad Walton is performing in training. Non of us wanted him in goal at the start of the season and we all wanted a new keeper. By all means give him a try but don’t expect him to solve the problem. In truth we probably need a new keeper but FFP rules won’t necessarily allow us to spend what is needed and therein lies the problem.

I only watched the game live yesterday and I haven’t seen any replays from yesterday but without jumping down my throat I suspect when I get round to it Muric was probably lured into his crazy mistake by being exposed down our right flank by some pretty sloppy defensive work. As I said early in the game Ben Johnson, just like Harry Clarke always looks like a mistake waiting to happen and often gets caught out of position or easily run rings round.

Hi Andy, I certainly don't think Walton is any great shakes either but he'll be way better than Muric with his eyes shut, in fact I wouldn't be against Slicker getting a chance.

I honestly think you'll change your mind on the Muric thing when you see it again, he had to stay put, it makes it so much harder and unlikely they score, defenders were racing back and in attendance, it really made no sense, there are thousands of comments all over the place regarding Muric, we just can't continue with him.

[Ricco]

Yeah, are we not going to talk about how Johnson allowed his man to easily get goal side? How Davis isn't even close to helping, so we're down to 2 v 3? How the forwards in the centre have acres of space? How if Muric had stayed, we would still be in huge danger? How all this is happening when it's THE 87TH FLIPPING MINUTE AND WE'RE 1 UP?!?



Yes, Muric made a c*ck up and has made plenty, yes it was ludicrous bringing in such a young and inexperienced keeper for such a defensively brutal campaign. But understand there is a bigger picture, we can't keep blaming individuals when they have had to work so hard and do so much more work than basically any team in the league, of course you're going to get tired, of course you're going to make mistakes. 5 at the back wouldn't have conceded there, that's all I'll say, Muric knew we were in the sh*t, with 3 covering the centre, he would have stayed back I'm certain, it was a situation forced error, not blind madness.

[hallamblue]

He’d have had a much better chance of saving a shot had he stayed in his 6 yard area. As soon as he made that run he’d left ACRES of space behind him, then the run by the Bournemouth forwards had a much easier job of a tap in as there was no keeper in front of them.

This incident happened because we lost possession up field , which is why players like Davis and Johnson were caught out, as they were up the pitch.

So it’s about game management again isn’t it . McKenna brings on the two most inexperienced and lightweight players you could possibly bring on , both attackers in the 87th min ….WHY????

Fill the midfield, fill the back line with subs and hang on …no. Let’s stick to our beliefs …HIS beliefs and attack , attack , attack …

[Bluemike]

Yeah, are we not going to talk about how Johnson allowed his man to easily get goal side? How Davis isn't even close to helping, so we're down to 2 v 3? How the forwards in the centre have acres of space? How if Muric had stayed, we would still be in huge danger? How all this is happening when it's THE 87TH FLIPPING MINUTE AND WE'RE 1 UP?!?



Yes, Muric made a c*ck up and has made plenty, yes it was ludicrous bringing in such a young and inexperienced keeper for such a defensively brutal campaign. But understand there is a bigger picture, we can't keep blaming individuals when they have had to work so hard and do so much more work than basically any team in the league, of course you're going to get tired, of course you're going to make mistakes. 5 at the back wouldn't have conceded there, that's all I'll say, Muric knew we were in the sh*t, with 3 covering the centre, he would have stayed back I'm certain, it was a situation forced error, not blind madness.

I have to agree about certain parts of what you say Ricco, it comes back to McKenna and his awful game management, I mean what in God's name were those defenders doing so far up the bloody pitch with 5 mins to go and us winning, SEE THE SODDING GAME OUT !!
however as long as i breath I can't agree that Muric was forced into anything here, he simply had to stay put, just as the prat did against Brentford and Man Utd when he should have stepped forward ONE f**king YARD !!
His decision making is appalling.

[Bluemike]

He’d have had a much better chance of saving a shot had he stayed in his 6 yard area. As soon as he made that run he’d left ACRES of space behind him, then the run by the Bournemouth forwards had a much easier job of a tap in as there was no keeper in front of them.

This incident happened because we lost possession up field , which is why players like Davis and Johnson were caught out, as they were up the pitch.

So it’s about game management again isn’t it . McKenna brings on the two most inexperienced and lightweight players you could possibly bring on , both attackers in the 87th min ….WHY????

Fill the midfield, fill the back line with subs and hang on …no. Let’s stick to our beliefs …HIS beliefs and attack , attack , attack …

Spot on

[Bluemike]

By the way, Delap is on 4 yellows so not suspended

[Steve and Jo]

Yes there were players not in ideal positions, so many things can look at and certainly hope they do but.... When you have a goalkeeper rush out like Muric did you have no chance. Step out to near the 6 yard line is then fair enough. Narrow the angle down, Give yourself a good chance to react like cutting out crosses or being ready for possible save but not rush out like that

Suicidal and totally cost us

[Ricco]

I can't agree that Muric was forced into anything here

Yeah, I didn't mean to say he was forced in to it as if he had no choice, more that our poor position in that moment would have had an affect on his decision and we shouldn't have been in that position to start with. Like a forced error in tennis, it's still an error, but not an unforced error, or something like that...

[ITFC2024]

Nice to see Chaplin get his first Premier League goal.

I’m just curious, a thought for all you folks hating on the Premier League…if indeed we do get relegated (which we probably will because our squad isn’t strong enough and we have a buffoon for a goal keeper) do you just want us to be a very competitive team in the Championship and just miss promotion? Maybe getting beat in the playoffs? Or, will you want us to bounce back and get promoted again…to the Premier League you hate?

Just curious.

I would want us to be one of the strongest teams in the Championship, beating teams most weeks, and watching our players playing with confidence and flair. I would want us to get promoted again, as this is all income for the club and I would even advocate 2-3 years of being a yo-yo club as we would gradually get stronger year on year. Then , if we’re able to hold our own in the PL it’s might not be such a farce that it is now. But I will always hate the plastic nature of the PL, ( the face holding, platoon style falling to the ground and rolling over and over and over following an innocuous tap on the ankle by a Town player). This happened time and again yesterday by Bournemouth players, and to his credit the ref simply ignored them, yet they still rolled around for several minutes before getting up to make a sprint for the ball!! VAR is farcical and is nothing more than yet another official who’s not even on the bloody pitch influencing decisions. It makes a mockery of the game. So no, I hate PL, but if it’s there and it will make my club stronger by getting into it , I’ll go with it. Do I enjoy going to games this season? No.

Ok, I agree with that.

[valleyroad]

Nice to see Chaplin get his first Premier League goal.

I’m just curious, a thought for all you folks hating on the Premier League…if indeed we do get relegated (which we probably will because our squad isn’t strong enough and we have a buffoon for a goal keeper) do you just want us to be a very competitive team in the Championship and just miss promotion? Maybe getting beat in the playoffs? Or, will you want us to bounce back and get promoted again…to the Premier League you hate?

Just curious.

I would want us to be one of the strongest teams in the Championship, beating teams most weeks, and watching our players playing with confidence and flair. I would want us to get promoted again, as this is all income for the club and I would even advocate 2-3 years of being a yo-yo club as we would gradually get stronger year on year. Then , if we’re able to hold our own in the PL it’s might not be such a farce that it is now. But I will always hate the plastic nature of the PL, ( the face holding, platoon style falling to the ground and rolling over and over and over following an innocuous tap on the ankle by a Town player). This happened time and again yesterday by Bournemouth players, and to his credit the ref simply ignored them, yet they still rolled around for several minutes before getting up to make a sprint for the ball!! VAR is farcical and is nothing more than yet another official who’s not even on the bloody pitch influencing decisions. It makes a mockery of the game. So no, I hate PL, but if it’s there and it will make my club stronger by getting into it , I’ll go with it. Do I enjoy going to games this season? No.

Ok, I agree with that.

I don't agree at all. There is no guarantee that Ipswich would come back up again. Leeds didn't and plenty haven't in the past. 17th and above needs to be the target this season and build from there. I couldn't care less about how it looks as Forest, Brighton, Bournemouth, Fulham are all great examples of where Ipswich can get to.
You always want to be playing at the top level