Paul B
Well-known member
- Joined
- 14 Dec 2017
- Messages
- 1,264
We couldn't do our normal fast passing becaase Ipswich were blocking and cutting out everything. When that happens we seem to get rattled and lose confidence, maybe this is due to being quite a young and inexperienced side? I'm not a great fan of this formation against good teams as we can end up with neither proper full backs nor proper wingers, as happened on Saturday.Nice report Paul.
I am one of those who didn't mind the ref being happy to ignore much of the niggly fouls in the first half. They ae annoying but I would rather see a game like that than a stop-start affair. My problem with him was that as the game went on, he increasingly decided that things he hadn't blown for before were now fouls. It's inconsistency that I can't stand in a ref.
I thought we started the game pretty brightly and were certainly the best team in the first half of the first half but then tailed off alarmingly. The second half was awful. What were those long balls being punted up the field for? We didn't benefit from a single one of them but kept doing it! We are best when we keep the ball on the floor and move it about, preferably at speed. The chances of our small forwards winning (and being able to do anything with) a ball in the air when being defended by a couple of large centre backs was vanishingly small. The class of Burns really showed up Williams (all game) as not being a wing back. Ipswich didn't have to create space - it was there waiting for them to exploit. The same will be true of the Plymouths, Sunderlands and MKDons of this world as well - we can't go into those games and try t play like that. Any manager (in fact anybody) will have identified that particular weakness. The equaliser (while of course very very welcome) to come degree hid the fact that was a match we deserved to lose.
What concerns me slightly is that we were poor at Shrewsbury and now against Ipswich. I hope the fact that we somehow managed to get 4 points from those two games doesn't persuade KR to persist with the formation. It's OK against the weaker teams, but pretty feeble against the better ones. It's OK to say that 'we'll score more goals than you' but if you aren't making chances (the last hour or so on Saturday) that simply doesn't work.
You say that you struggled to recall a goal attempt in the second half, apart from our goal scored. On our way home, we contemplated whether or not we had even progressed the ball into their penalty area during that half. We are still not sure if we did.
You say that you struggled to recall a goal attempt in the second half, apart from our goal scored. On our way home, we contemplated whether or not we had even progressed the ball into their penalty area during that half. We are still not sure if we did.
Thank you, Paul
I felt RadOx yesterday was rather swept away by the emotion of the equaliser, and I hope KR asks himself the hard question that everyone on the radio avoided: why were we so poor in the second half? I think you correctly identify some of the reasons - an Ipswich side full of good technical footballers, some naivety, especially from Ryan Williams (although he does really try!) and some below-par performances (McGuane, Sykes, Taylor). I would add when we were under the cosh, there was no out-ball or even 'out plan'. I would hope that coaching can address this, because punts up field that gave the ball back to them were obviously not the answer.
I also thought Sam Morsy (who is a very good player at this level) also made a difference, in part because the referee let him get away with some naughty challenges.