Ipswich Town v Brighton & Hove Albion
Saturday 28th September 2013
Portman Road - 15:00
I mentioned last week that ‘The Don’ would be back for this weeks ‘Preview’ from his trip away attending the ‘World Morris Dancing Championships’ being held in Kazakhstan . Unfortunately he has had to extend his stay, and there I was saying that he would never make it past the qualifying rounds.
So once again it’s a big thanks to James as we team up for what should in theory be our last preview. Well it will certainly be the last preview for September if nothing else.
Cheers Dave
Jamma’s Opening Thought
Football’s a funny old game, as they say. Although we came out of our two successive home matches against Middlesbrough and Yeovil with a maximum points haul, supporters and pundits were far from convinced by our performances. We then go to Wigan and take the game to one of the pre-season favourites for promotion but come away with nothing to show for our endeavour.
Frustratingly, our Achilles heel continues to be our inability to convert our chances, a number of which were very presentable at the DW Stadium. If the projected short-term signing of Sylvan Ebanks-Blake goes ahead, this could give us more firepower up front.
The midfield has attracted a lot of criticism for a perceived lack of creativity but I think Mick McCarthy summed it up perfectly in his post-match interview when he said that we needed to be more ruthless – at both ends of the pitch.
Even disregarding Dean Gerken’s error on Sunday, the defence have not reached the same heights as the latter half of last season, when Tommy Smith and Luke Chambers were dominant, with just one clean sheet from the opening eight matches this time around.
There have been encouraging signs in the early part of the season but there is certainly room for improvement in all areas of the pitch.
As we all know, we have now played all three of last season’s relegated clubs and have held our own but ultimately come up short each time.
While we can take some confidence from the fact that we have been more than competitive in these three fixtures, as McCarthy has pointed out, there is only so long that we can identify our tough start as a reason why our level of performances isn’t reflected by our points tally.
Having said that, the Championship is still in its infancy and we’ve seen how a couple of wins on the bounce can take a side from lower mid-table obscurity to the fringes of the playoffs. Indeed, a third consecutive win on Sunday would have taken us up to 8th instead of the by now familiar surroundings of 14th.
This weekend provides us with an opportunity to build upon the 5th best home record in the division, with the visit of another team around us in the table, Brighton and Hove Albion.
The Opposition
The team is nicknamed the "Seagulls" or "Albion". The team has historically played in blue and white stripes, though this changed to all white briefly in the 1970s and again to plain blue during the club's most successful spell in the 1980s. They were originally based at the Goldstone Ground.
Founded in 1901, Brighton played their early professional football in the Southern League before being elected to the Football League in 1920.
The club enjoyed greatest prominence between 1979 and 1983 when they played in the First Division and reached the 1983 FA Cup Final, losing to Manchester United after a replay. They were relegated from the top division in the same season.
Mismanagement brought Brighton close to relegation from the Football League to the Conference which they narrowly avoided in 1997 and 1998.
A lifelong fan named Richard Knight took control of the club in 1997 having led the fan pressure to oust the previous board following their sale of the club's Goldstone Ground to property developers.
The sale of the Goldstone ground went through and this led to Brighton having to play some 70 miles away at Gillingham's Priestfield stadium.
For the start of the 1999–2000 season The Seagulls moved back to Brighton and started playing their home games at Withdean Stadium, a converted athletics track owned by the local council.
2000–01 was Brighton's first successful season for 13 years. They were crowned champions of Division Three and promoted to Division Two.
The following season they maintained maintained their good form and ended the season as Division Two champions, winning a second successive promotion, just five years after almost succumbing to the double threat of losing their Football League status and going out of business completely.
During May 2009, Knight was replaced as chairman at Brighton by Tony Bloom, who had successfully secured £93 million funding for the new Falmer Stadium (which was re-named the AMEX) and secured 75% shareholding at the club
After a whirlwind last few years which have seen Brighton finally establish themselves as a competitive Championship club, they have hit something of a sticky patch in 2013.
As if losing to fierce rivals Crystal Palace in the Playoff semi-finals wasn’t bad enough, Gus Poyet departed in acrimonious circumstances amid inevitable speculation linking him to the vacant Chelsea managerial position. Poyet’s alleged desire to take over at a Premier League club was supposedly the catalyst for the club’s decision to sack him, news which was controversially passed on to him while working for the BBC at the Confederations Cup.
The Uruguayan, along with assistant manager and former Town favourite Mauricio Taricco, had previously been suspended pending an internal investigation. While Poyet now appears at home on the BBC Sport sofa, he has publicly recorded his support for replacement Oscar García, in spite of his ongoing legal dispute with the Seagulls which promises to run and run…
Perhaps unsurprisingly given all this uncertainty surrounding the club at the beginning of the season, the Spaniard’s reign got off to a slow start, in the form of 2-1 defeats to Leeds and Derby and a Capital One Cup exit at the hands of league newcomers Newport County.
However, Brighton are starting to rediscover the form that made them promotion challengers last season, with victories over Birmingham, Burnley and Bolton sandwiching stalemates at Reading and QPR.
The seagulls have maintained the defensive stability that has provided the foundations for their recent success, having conceded the joint second fewest goals in the league. If our strikers are going to rediscover their goalscoring touch, Saturday could be a good day to start!.
One To Watch – Will Buckley
In the absence of Leonardo Ulloa due to suspension, I am going to go for Will Buckley as my ‘One to watch’.
The 23-year-old midfielder came through the ranks at Rochdale but it was at Watford where he really started to make a name for himself after signing in January 2010.
Buckley’s form over his eighteen months at Vicarage Road attracted the attention of Brighton, who broke their transfer record to sign him ahead of their first campaign back in the second tier.
The youngster lived up to his reputation for coming up with significant strikes by scoring the winner in the first competitive match played at the Amex Stadium.
He went on to score eight goals in his debut season, a figure that he emulated last term as he quickly established himself as one of the first names on Gus Poyet’s teamsheet.
He has started 2013/14 as a regular under Oscar García and will be looking to reach double figures as the club aim to go one better than last season
The Gaffer - Oscar García Junyent
Óscar García Junyent, simply known as Óscar is the current head coach of Brighton & Hove Albion.
As a player he was a versatile offensive option, able to play as an attacking midfielder or a second striker. He played most of his 14-year professional career with Barcelona, also representing four other clubs.
In La Liga Óscar amassed totals of 169 games and 31 goals over the course of 12 seasons, also representing Espanyol (four seasons), and Albacete and Valencia (one apiece).
For Spain, Óscar appeared for the nation at the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta, netting twice for the eventual quarterfinalists.
Óscar playing career finished with Barça neighbours RCD Espanyol (teaming up again with brother Roger, for three seasons) and UE Lleida and retiring in June 2005 at the age of 32.
In late 2009 Óscar joined former Barcelona coach Johan Cruyff's coaching staff in the Catalonia national team.
On 22 May 2012 he had his first head coach appointment, signing a two-year contract with Israeli team Maccabi Tel Aviv FC. Exactly one year later, after leading the club to the national championship after a ten-year drought, he resigned from his post, citing personal reasons.
On 26 June 2013, Óscar was unveiled as the new head coach of Football League Championship club Brighton & Hove Albion. Albion's first win under his management was a 1-0 away win against Birmingham City on 1 August 2013.
Stat Time
After an impressive 3-1 win over the Seagulls on their return to the second tier, Town have gone three without a win against Saturday’s visitors, losing 3-0 home and away and claiming a creditable draw at the Amex last season.
Head 2 Head
Brighton Wins...................22…………....35.4%
Ipswich Town Wins.............27………......43.5%
Draws.............................13……………..21.1%
Brighton Goals..................93
Ipswich Town Goals...........103
Head 2 Head at Ipswich
Brighton Wins....................6…………...19.4%
Ipswich Town Wins..............19…........61.2%
Draws..............................6…………..19.4%
Brighton Goals..................33
Ipswich Town Goals............67
Keeping the costs of football down .............. employing dead people as your cheerleaders!
The Predicted Teams
Ipswich Town
It’s hard to see where Mick will change things in an attempt to get back to winning ways, especially as he immediately quashed speculation that Dean Gerken would be making way for Scott Loach following his error at Wigan. Paul Taylor could come in after a lively cameo on Sunday but this is unlikely to be on the right of midfield, where Paul Anderson has impressed.
-------------------------------Dean Gerken-----------------------------------
Luke Chambers---Christophe Berra---Tommy Smith---Aaron Cresswell
Paul Anderson-------Luke Hyam-------Cole Skuse-------Ryan Tunnicliffe
----------------------David McGoldrick---Daryl Murphy----------------------
Brighton & Hove Albion
Oscar García made several changes for Brighton’s last outing against Bolton but will be less likely to do so for Saturday in the wake of a convincing 3-1 win. Leonardo Ulloa sits out the last of a three-game ban after being sent off against Reading.
----------------------------Tomasz Kuszczak----------------------------
Gordon Greer---Inigo Calderon---Matthew Upson---Stephen Ward
Craig Conway---------------Andrew Crofts---------------Will Buckley
Kazenga Lua-Lua-------------Ashley Barnes-------------David Lopez
Caption Competition
Maybe the Cheerleaders killed them?
Ref Interview – Stephen Martin
can you spot where he has hidden his packet of cigarettes?
Not a lot I can say about Stephen Martin, he spent a number of years refereeing lower league sides, mainly in the conference.
This will only be his fourth ‘Championship’ league fixture he has officiated in, ironically his first opportunity at this level was at Bristol City in January of this year where Ipswich went down to the home side 2-1.
Looking at his stats earlier in his career he appeared quite whistle happy and on quite a number of occasions there were less than 22 players on the field at fulltime than there were at kick-off. It would appear though that as his career has advanced he has become less whistle happy.
Jamma’s Final Thought
It’s fair to say that our start to the season has provoked mixed reactions from the Blue Army, with the inevitable disappointment at our solitary point on the road countered by more positivity surrounding our three wins out of four at Portman Road.
It has been said that we are probably around about where we expected to be at this stage…and I’m not just talking about our favourite position from recent seasons of 14th!
As well as we performed at the home of the three relegated sides, realistically these weren’t the games we were targeting three points from when the fixtures were released back in June.
At home, only promotion-chasing QPR, Leicester, Blackpool and Nottingham Forest have picked up more points than Town and we are the joint second top scorers our own patch.
While no game in the Championship can be classed as easy, we now have a run of games which we should be confident of claiming results from. After an indifferent start, Brighton are starting to find some form, which should make for an exciting match.
Jamma’s Prediction: IPSWICH TOWN 1 BRIGHTON AND HOVE ALBION 1
Frosty’s Prediction: IPSWICH TOWN 3 BRIGHTON AND HOVE ALBION 1
COME ON YOU BLUES!
