Blackburn Rovers v Ipswich Town preview and matchday thread

[derick_ipsw]

The last match fact is very embarrassing. Sort it McCarthy.

Match facts
Blackburn are unbeaten in nine at home to Ipswich in league competition, winning the last five.
Ipswich won the last league clash with Blackburn, 2-0 at Portman Road in March.
The Tractor Boys have only scored four goals in their last 10 away league games and never more than once.
Marvin Emnes has been directly involved in 50% of Blackburn's goals this season (three goals, three assists).
Blackburn are yet to record a clean sheet this season; only matched by Nottingham Forest.
Ipswich have the worst passing accuracy rate in the Championship this season (62.37%).

[herforder]

Caption Comp : One Way or another I'm gonna get yet yer, gonna get yer get yer get yer One Way or another.

Heard this on the radio driving home from work today. Forgot how good blondie was

Oh! she was good!!! with stunning looks too!

I wonder if MM will be singing tonight after the Blackburn game!!!
We need someone like Blondie to shake up the lads today!!!

The Tide Is High - But I'm Holding On! (MM's favourite Blondie track)
Today's squad to receive a brisk rub down with Debbie Harry - that should do it!

[Charnwood]

I guess another boring 0-0 draw looks highly probable.

[marko69]

True story, one that can be believed if there ever is a big Tractor Boys . Com meet up......., my big brother, (he's 50) used to cry himself to sleep as a 13/14 year because he was so in love with Deborah Harry, and he wouldn't deny it if you met him........, AND,....... His wife, Jane, is an absolute drop dead ringer for her! I remember my dad saying to him, "You've only gone and got yourself your own personal Debbie Harry there!" Shame really, because his daughters all look like him......, ugly bastards!! -----> JOKING!

[Mr.Punch]

might win, could win, want to win, should win, must win or at least try to win!

0-0

[arana peligrosa]

Team annoucement

Bialkowski
Chambers
Webster
Berra
Knudsen
Ward
Douglas
Skuse
Lawrence
Best
Sears

Gerken
Bishop
Williams
Bru
Emmanuel
Grant
Kenlock

The are players that are capable there, so let's at least try and get something from today ?

[Tangfastic]

Emanuell on the bench. Chambo back at RB. Guess Emanuell has to wait till FA Cup third round tie in January before he gets a sniff.

Where's there a fair and healthy competition for places based on performances? Too many places in the side sown up. Feel for a kid like Emanuell.... should have been given opportunities to build on a couple of performances. First chance... he's dropped. How many poor performances does it take to drop a Chambers?

Apart from that... COYB.

[Dubai Blue]

Emmanuel will get his chance eventually. Anyone know of a commentary link? (Obv. not Ipswich player).

[ipswichtownNo1]

Emmanuel will get his chance eventually. Anyone know of a commentary link? (Obv. not Ipswich player).

Yes he will, when itfc sell him on for a bargain price to a rival team.

[shamm]

No goals again!

[arana peligrosa]

Team actually appear to have played better today and created opportunity and threatened. Keep in mind the caliber of opposition but this is nonetheless encouraging - just unable to find a way through.

Game entering the closing stages and still no score, another instance of frustration against a team occupying the bottom three places. Still just enough time to win it but McCarthy will doubtless be happy enough if it remains as it is.

[marko69]

Very slowly edging towards not giving a Fk about reading match reports. You need to start scoring some goals, ITFC. It's in danger of becoming a deep rooted mental issue.

No doubt some fans will feel a bit mental for travelling.

[Mach_Polish_Blue]

MATCH REPORT ..... and this is bad !

The best thing for me from the personal point is to have come back to Manchester quickly however feel really sorry for the travelling party from Suffolk. Such long way to come back and they have no positives to take from todays game.

First our 'wonderful' boss in whom 'we trust' drops Emmanuel to bring back 'his right back' Chambers. His right back as no-one is going to tell him what to do, eh?

We've had probably more shots on target in the first half than in the entire September however their keeper Steele had only two real saves to make. Blackburn offered no threat whatsoever for the vast majority of the first half. Webster in particular was our stood out player as the defence was well marshalled by him. Their winger Samuelsen after who we had been in summer showed glimpses of good skills and he would be a better player in a better team.

Steele's first save came after 10 minutes albeit Ward's shot went straight at him. The closest we came to score was a Webster's header from a few yards impressively tipped over the bar by Steele.

Lawrence wasted very good opportunity as Webster left him the ball on a plate in 30 min but he failed to find a target from 16 yards.

As I said above no threat from Blackburn and their first meaningfull attack came towards the end of first half. In general Blackburn passed the ball better than us however they were devoid of any ideas how to break down defensively set up Ipswich Town. Clear lack of quality.

0-0 at half time and my view was that we needed to have a real go at them in the 2nd half. Real and more ferocious. Poor opposition who are definitely for taking, we need goals, we need win so today was a perfect opportunity. Seemingly obvious thing but our '0-0 is a priority' master changed his approach and went for the safety as a priority.

Second half in a nutshell? APPALLING ! Two really abject teams. Blackburn glaringly lacking quality and confidence and 'pleased' Ipswich team as 0-0 was never under threat. We only had two little chances. First, Best's deflected shot from tight angle was parried by Steele and 15 mins from the time Lawrence missed the target from a few yards.

Blackburn was equally as poor as they were in first half. Completely harmless. Easily the worst opposition we played for a long while. Bialkowski was practically a spectator throughout and I don't think he needed a shower after the game. Yet .... we struggle to score a goal and create number of opportunites against opposition like that and put 0-0 as a priority !!!

Really ridiculous substitution on 74 min as Bishop replaced Ward who was quite lively today. Our tactical master takes off forward thinking player to replace him with the same type of player. We can't have two of them at the same time as 0-0 is a priority Mr.Stubborn, eh? 'Skused' approach for 0-0 far more important than having attacking players on the pitch.

Honestly there is not much I can say about really poor second half. Misery, sadness. Two utterly abject teams !

Their keeper Jason Steele was named Man of the Match ! For only two saves in the first half !

Never seen so empty seats at Ewood Park and such sparse crowd. A few roars from their own 'Section 6' : we want Venkys out ! My personal message to them would be you can have Marcus Evans if you want ! Just like Venkys he'll keep selling your best players without replacing them. At least Venkys aren't ripping off their own and away fans at Ewood Park and the ticket was only 22 pounds.

Leon Best. What a fooking useless donkey he is ! Our owner keeps selling our players and we dig in the rejects' bin to bring such crap like Leon Best to the club. I know that McGoldrick and Pitman are out injured but it remains ridiculous that we play a 'striker of Leon Best quality' upfront. But this is Marcus Evans. A few players sold in the recent years and replace them with crap like that.

Obviously Douglas will be an automatic scapegoat for some but I'll keep defending as he didn't do too badly today. Worked his socks off at times by chasing every ball and opponent. What can he do when he is being told to sit deep?

Chambers fine in the first half today but very poor especially his passes and couple of deliveries after the break.

I keep saying what I had been saying for many, many days. I don't know, have no bloody idea where the next goal comes from. We continue our safety 0-0 approaches no matter who we play. A few people are going to tell us that point away is never a bad point but failure to score against abject Blackburn team is an embarrassment. I don't think we're gonna face a worse opposition this season and if Blackburn avoid relegation they will have done well. To be honest though I don't know what makes us better than them when scoring goals isn't our priority. Just 0-0 approaches !

Our tactical master will certainly be pleased that his 0-0 priority target has been reached. He will be but I'm really dumbstruck. Don't know what to think, what to hope for. Really feel sorry for younger generation of our fans as supporting Ipswich is a chore nowadays.

We wouldn't have scored even if we played until midnight with our awful 2nd half approach. Honestly even Alan Lee taken from retirement would have been a bit more productive than Leon Best.

Nothing, literally nothing changes and he'll keep sticking to his gameplans. What's next? 2 or maybe 3 (just like Rotherham home game last March) holding midfielders against Burton?

We are abuse to the football ! As things stand we're fighting relegation at the moment without shadow of doubt but even then you have to score goals.

Bluemike thank you for your companion !

[Frosty]

Well at the least the chat about Debbie Harry was entertaining


Edit: Sorry Mach, we posted at the same time.

Thanks as always for your match report, living a million miles away I look forward to them each week mate.

[hallamblue]

However you want to dress it up, Ipswich Town are in a relegation battle. The sad thing is, 99% of this is down to MM' s dire, ultra defensive, shyte scared to lose tactics which are styfilling the life out if this Club.

It doesn't matter how many creative players he's brought in, because his either too stubborn to play them, or just f ucking clueless how to attack.

oh for a manager who has the passion to take a game to opponents and let them worry about us. This will never happen while Mick Mccarthy is our manager. This is the very sad conclusion I have now come to, having fought his corner and defended his tactics for far too long.


MICK OUT
EVANS OUT

[Mr.Punch]

Thanks for the report Mach.
I was listening on BBC Radio Suffolk, they weren't quite as depressed as you seem to be.
Alex Mathie usually tells it how it is and although not exactly overcome by happiness, he was positive about making chances and playing better than of late.
A caller, Danny who had been at the game, also gave a brighter outlook and made me feel there might be hope ahead!

I was down and angry after the last 2 home games but I actually feel a bit more positive now.
If we lose 0-3 against Burton however, I'll Boo with everyone else

As one of many fans who sang "Robson Out" all those years ago, I am not first in the queue to see a manager sacked.
I am more for saying to Mr Evans 'put up or move on'.
I'm looking forward to the Supporter's Club evening where MM and Ian Milne answer questions.
I went last year but there was not a dissenting voice in the place - this years is on 27th October in Legends, if people really are upset why not go along and voice your concern?
If you are a ST holder or Silver member etc you can attend free.

[arana peligrosa]

Took in portions of the game throughout it's duration and at times we seemed to play with some invention and created chances but how long now since a goal was scored ? Far too premature for any relegation concerns but the irregularity in which we find the goal has to be addressed sooner or later. McCarthy and Evans maybe saw the result as a score of some merit and to them what occurred today may represent some level of 'progress'. Yes essentially it's hasn't improved things to any great extent, but I believe that's their way of thinking - such it is we're not progressing as we should.

Tried to read the game report from TWTD (as always) but the pages proved unresponsive so took in the above-write up instead from Mach Blue and appreciate the time taken to provide a good in-depth analysis of how they viewed it.

The Burton Albion game should be an interesting encounter. Held Wigan to a draw today if correct and they're no pushovers and then Newcastle coming up soon after. I thought ahead of time if we had lost today and then to Burton then actions may have been taken, but McCarthy would have done 'enough' today to insist to the owner (that) he is still the right name to take charge.

[Bluemike]

Just home from what was another frustrating and dour day following ITFC. I think it is fair to say we were nothing more than average today and this against what for me will without question turn out to be the worst team we play this season and a team that WILL go down. Despite this it was definitely better than what I saw against Leeds & Huddersfiled by some distance because we did at least create 2 or 3 decent chances although converting them still looks a million miles away.

After a tidy start by Blackburn it was Town who had the first real effort on goal with Ward putting in a pretty weak effort which was comfortably dealt with. Not long after that another shot from Chambo whistled just passed the far post before what turned out to be our best chance of the match saw Webster's header very well saved by Steele. Webster was far and away Town's best performer and it was his driving run minutes later that created a decent chance for Lawrence who dragged his shot wide when he should really have hit the target. As the break approached Blackburn finally had a shot which sailed just over the bar with Bart in no real trouble at all. Town had definitely had the better of the game and it was pleasing to at least see a few chances being created. the feeling among Town fans at the interval was that this was very much a game that we could go on and win as long as we approched the half in a more attack minded way.

The second half failed miserably to even live up to the first half offering and chances at either end were of a premium, it was still Town that looked the more likely but in truth we never had that look of a team that were going all out to grab the points, there was always an air of caution about us. It wasn't until about 20 minutes from the end Town had a really good chance to go ahead, Sears capatilising on a c*ck up in the Blackburn defence but Sears weak effort was again saved by Steele but the ball was played back in to Lawrence who contrived to see his close range effort stopped by Steele again when he really should have stroked the ball home. That was really as close as we came in the second 45 to winning it although we did have another couple of half chances while again Blackburn had a solitary effort in the second half which again sailed over the bar.

Was it an improvement on recent games ? Yes for me it was but taking into account who we were playing it has to be said that again we have missed an opportunity and again we seemed to lack the know how when it comes to going for the jugular, Blackburn are poor, there is no doubt about that but we let them off the hook. MM still seems intent on frustrating us fans with odd decisions, dropping Emmanuel for one when he had done little wrong and while Chambers had an OK first half there were still too many iffy moments after the break. We have to give credit to the defence at it was another clean sheet which is now Four from Six but for me the Midfield lacks any vision and creativity and that is with Lawrence & Ward on the pitch, when Bishop came on he at least got the ball down and ran at the defence and in doindg so made them look vulnerable, unfortunately he should have been on 25 minutes earlier !! Sears did a lot of running but as a goal threat looks powder puff and that was playing as a striker in a 4-4-2 alongside Best who it has to be said was very poor today, his touch was all over the place and his timing for headers way off.

Burton remains a massive game, even more so now as we just have to get Three points with Newcastle looming large, that will be big defeat I am afraid to say. A small cameo from Jonny Williams offered some hope as he had a couple of nice touches but again it was right at the death. Five games without a goal is a shocking stat but at least we are keeping it tight at the back at last. The pressure is no doubt still piling up on ME & MM and anything other than Three points Tuesday will see it get to the point of no return in my opinion.

Bart (6) Chambers (6) Berra (6) Webster (8) Knudsen (6) Skuse (5) Douglas (6) Ward (6) Lawrence (5) Sears (6) Best (5)

SUBS :- Bishop (6) Williams (6)

[hallamblue]

many thanks Mike for your report. always good to get it from the horses mouth as they say!

For me, we seem to be repeating the same thing week after week.

In fact you can probably copy and paste this report and put in Burton name, repost it post match Tuesday and it would reflect perfectly how the game went.

It's the definition of madness. We (MM) keeps doing the same old thing game after game. I've list count of the number of games this season where we have said..." they were there for the taking ". The problem is Mick has no volition to take the game to the opposition and prefers to be cautious in the extreme.

Well, nothing ventured, nothing gained as they say. We will be in the bottom three before Xmas I suspect. What will Evans do then I wonder?

[Shed on tour]

Thanks for the reports Mach & Bluemike.

Sounds like a case of same as, same as. Next Saturday should be interesting and I'm already questioning my sanity in making the journey up to the North East.

[Tangfastic]

Once more, very good reports from Mike and Mach.

Although there were positives, Blackburn were poor. The type of team who during the course of 46 games you should see as very beatable. 2 points dropped, whereas a point away to Newcstle would be a point gained.

A bit of kudos to Mick to bringing back Webster. But tough on Emanuell to give way. Saying after the game that he needs his captain on the pitch as he's a talker and inspirational didn't convince me. He's got other senior pros in their 30's like Skuse, Douglas, Berra who should be able to take on leadership. Anyway, this is not about Chambers yesterday, just that it keeps on reinforcing the fact that a chosen few are undroppable with Mick. Hate the idea that young players must see that they've got very limited opportunities to get into that team... and stay in the team!.
The bar is set pretty low for certain senior players... do the running, keep the shape, block tackles, sideway passes... but these aren't going to win games. I worry that a young player like Bishop, Dozzel, Emanuell if they get a chance will have to consistently put in 9/10 performances just to keep their place. Doing the dirty work and being an unsung hero is essential for a team....and also covering for creative players.... but it seems to be Mick's idea to build a team around them with more creative players to fill the gaps. Not the other way around.

Seems ridiculous that the Burton game takes on so much importance in October (no disrespect to Burton). Can see us grinding out a win and I don't think it will tell us much where we are going. A 3-0 or a 0-3 would make it more clearer, but it won't happen.

[bluejacko]

I have been told by a budgie fan that Burton played good footie at their place so this game on Tuesday is by no means going to be a given!

[Bluemike]

No, far from a given but we really do need to win.

[Shed on tour]

No, far from a given but we really do need to win.

Patience Mike.

At this moment in time scoring a goal would be an achievement!

[Bluemike]

No, far from a given but we really do need to win.

Patience Mike.

At this moment in time scoring a goal would be an achievement!

Shed I am going up to Newcastle on the Friday and taking in the delights of the Newcastle Nightlife to numb my brain prior to saturdays torturous events, what are your plans ? Would be good to see you.

[Shed on tour]

No, far from a given but we really do need to win.

Patience Mike.

At this moment in time scoring a goal would be an achievement!

Shed I am going up to Newcastle on the Friday and taking in the delights of the Newcastle Nightlife to numb my brain prior to saturdays torturous events, what are your plans ? Would be good to see you.

Mike

We are staying in Washington (not DC but probably would end up there if I followed the wife's directions ) and may very well go into Newcastle Friday evening. If we do perhaps we could meet up somewhere?

[marko69]

Thanks for the time and effort in writing out those match reports, guys. Much appreciated.

Leon Best labelled a "fooking useless donkey" is what saddens me the most. Really thought he'd do a very good job for ITFC. But my conclusions are born from memory, and I know for a fact that he WAS a fairly decent striker a few years ago, and from the reports, can't blame his performance on the midfield. It is sad.

You've entered the most testing time of your (post honeymoon) tenure at Ipswich Town, Mick. Starting Tuesday @ Portman Road -----> time to sort it out.

[Bluemike]

Mike

We are staying in Washington (not DC but probably would end up there if I followed the wife's directions ) and may very well go into Newcastle Friday evening. If we do perhaps we could meet up somewhere?

Yes indeed Shed, that would be good. I believe a few of us are meeting up somewhere which is as yet to be decided. perhaps if I give you my mobile number we can then make contact once up there etc ?

[Shed on tour]

Mike

We are staying in Washington (not DC but probably would end up there if I followed the wife's directions ) and may very well go into Newcastle Friday evening. If we do perhaps we could meet up somewhere?

Yes indeed Shed, that would be good. I believe a few of us are meeting up somewhere which is as yet to be decided. perhaps if I give you my mobile number we can then make contact once up there etc ?

Sounds good pm me your number either on here or FB and we can take it from there.

[Bluemike]

Done.