Monday verdict. post Newcastle. Stuart Watson

[hallamblue]

Monday verdict: Newcastle was a free hit, but there can be no more excuses moving forwards
Stuart Watson.

Let’s just all cool our jets for a week.


The ‘Monday Verdict’ has been pretty scathing of Ipswich Town’s mundane 2016 in recent weeks, but it’s important to judge each match objectively rather than allowing the eyes to see what they had already decided they were going to see.


Saturday’s 3-0 loss at Championship table-toppers Newcastle United is not a result to use as oxygen to add to the flames of criticism that are rapidly growing around manager Mick McCarthy.

This match was always a free hit. That may sound defeatist and like more evidence of a lack of ambition at the club, but, being realistic, it’s true. This wasn’t a level playing field, more of a gruelling 30% incline for the visitors.

Forget ‘anyone can beat anyone in this division’. Yes, Fulham and Huddersfield beat Newcastle in the opening weeks, but the multi-million pound Magpies have found their Championship legs since then and, quite frankly, if they don’t breeze their way to the title it will be a shock.

The north east club have a former Champions League winning manager in Rafa Benitez, spent more than £50m on players this summer and have capacity crowds of 52,000. When Jonjo Shelvey, Matt Ritchie, Dwight Gayle and co build up a head of steam, as they did at the weekend, they are very hard to stop.

So, to address a couple of points I’ve seen raised over the last week...

‘The Burton victory (2-0 at home last Tuesday) papered over the cracks’

True, Burton had 18 attempts on goal and forced 12 corners, but the focus should be on the fact that McCarthy finally picked an attacking team for a game at Portman Road and backed his players to go toe-to-toe with so-called lesser opposition. It worked. Oh, and Burton subsequently beat Birmingham on Friday night.

‘The Newcastle game is more evidence of McCarthy being too negative’.

Wrong. If anything he was guilty of being not pragmatic enough at St James’ Park.

Kevin Bru has been very inconsistent this season, but it seemed a strange time to replace him with Conor Grant. With Cole Skuse injured, Town’s midfield lacked bite.

Leon Best, Freddie Sears, Tom Lawrence, Grant Ward and Conor Grant are all offence-minded players. Jonathan Douglas was the only player fully focused on protecting. Hardly parking the bus.

Let’s hope the bold team selections continue because Town now have four home games in the next six – Rotherham (h), Sheff W (a), Forest (h), QPR (h), Bristol (a), Cardiff (h).

Newcastle was a free hit, but there can be no more excuses going forwards – especially with David McGoldrick and Jonny Williams fit again.

– Analysis of Mick McCarthy’s 200 games in charge of Ipswich Town in today’s EADT and Ipswich Star.

[herforder]

Sensible words. Saturday showed us the size of the gap between a club able to invest £50M on new players, whilst still accruing a healthy profit, and landing a Champions League winning manager. As Watson says, it was a free hit; and highlighted the quality that well targeted investment brings, whilst confirming our known weaknesses. That it was all done without the Magpies hardly breaking a sweat just adds to the sense of how far off their individual and collective quality we were. Had Skuse been available, or Bru started vice Grant, might have made some difference - but I'm not convinced that either could have affected significantly the game's momentum or outcome.

But that's now gone, and it's the next crop of games - including three at Home - that could well define our season and, critically, levels of continued support. Over to you MM to ensure, for those upcoming home games, that we adopt a 'let's go and win', and not a 'let's not lose' mentality, with a team set-up reflecting that mind set.

[hallamblue]

essentially we have to beat the teams below mid-table. anything else is a bonus the way Mick lines up the team.

Put it this way. I suspect it's safety first against Rotherham on Sat!

[herforder]

Yep - New Manager Bounce. Scared sh*tless!

[hallamblue]

I wish !

[Bluemike]

He speaks sense for once, they are exactly the thoughts and comments that I have already said, it is not losing at Newcastle that will define our season, where as the games against the Rotherhams of this world will. I would suggest we need to be looking at 12 points from those Six games that are coming up.

[hallamblue]

His recent Monday review has been a lot more open and transparent. Maybe the penny is beginning to drop that fans really have had enough and the local press are starting to ask those difficult questions?

[Andym]

It’s interesting to note that out of the bottom 8 teams, there are 3 matches this weekend involving 6 of those:
Ipswich v Rotherham, Blackburn v Wolves, Cardiff v Wigan. While it is unlikely that Forest will get anything at Reading, and Sheffield wed will probably win at Derby, wins for Wolves and Cardiff would see us drop a place or two should we fail to beat Rotherham. So potentially we could be 19th after the weekend.
On the other hand, should we win: and if Villa fail to win at Birmingham, Fulham fail to beat Huddersfield, and Barnsley lose to Bristol City, we would be up to 12th again (passing either Leeds or Burton, and QPR or Brentford, whatever the results of those matches).
League positions at this stage in the season are not too important (although becoming more so by the week.) My fear is that the four teams below us (Wolves, Forest, Cardiff, Derby) will all start to pick up points, so it is essential that we do too.
But something must change. A few statistics:
Shots per game: we average 10.6, with only Blackburn (10.3) and Rotherham (10.0) below us.
Shots on target per game: 3.1…. the worst in the league.
Goals scored: 10. Only Derby (7) below us.
But… goals conceded: 12. Only Newcastle (11), Brighton (9) and Derby (11) better than us.
% possession: 45.9%, with only Birmingham (45.3), Preston (44.6) and Rotherham (43.0) behind us.
Passing accuracy: 61.9%. The worst in the league.
Some – but not all – of this is MM’s fault.
The lack of shots, shots on target, and goals have many causes. Injuries to strikers (Pitman, McGoldrick, Varney) on top of the last minute sale of Murphy (which was inevitable, once he put in a transfer request) have left us short up front. None of that is MMs fault. But the one-up-front tactic, the-let’s-keep-Sears-out-wide tactic, and the inability to get any midfielders into the penalty area is down to MM.
Poor possession is the inevitable outcome of poor passing. Some of that is possibly poor quality players. In recent games, Knudsen has proved incapable of passing wind accurately. But I still believe much stems from a lack of movement off the ball. When the defence have the ball, no one (my biggest complaint about Skuse) demands the ball from them or makes themselves available. Long balls – even accurate long balls – will leave players isolated and lead to loss of possession unless we get up in support quickly. And that has to be down to tactics and / or coaching.
The problem is, nothing will change as long as MM is in charge. And as Bluemike keeps saying, he won’t go. He won’t quit. He won’t be sacked. Not until we find ourselves in the bottom 3. Or attendances fall even lower. (And as attendance figures are artificially high as they include all season tickets sold, they won’t drop much lower until the start of next season.)
I agree with the view that Last Saturday was very disappointing – not that we lost, but that we expected to lose, and use that as an excuse for a poor performance.
If we are going to say it didn’t matter, it was a game we couldn’t win, let’s not get excited if we win on Saturday by 3 goals…surely that’s a game we couldn’t lose… No, there are no games that can’t be won, and no games that can’t be lost. But to win, sometimes you have to want to win. And if our only real success this season is a lack of goals conceded, then that, along with lack of shots, poor passing, poor possession, must make us the most boring team to watch. I was saying it all last season and probably the season before. The results-over-performance supporters were understandably happy with the last 2 seasons. But as this season has shown, once the results dry up, there is nothing left. Absolutely nothing.

[hallamblue]

Spot on Andy, spot, bloody , on!