In adversity, and otherwise, all things must pass. Nothing stays the same. And with this philosophical thought in mind, we must believe that change is coming.
Perhaps in spite of, and not because of our current difficulties, Town will go into tomorrow’s game at Blackpool refreshed. Teddy Bishop is raring to go and he knows only too well that in football, as in life itself, everything is in a perpetual state of flux and an enforced reshuffle does not have a negative impact.
In fact, he is looking forward to playing at Bloomfield Road because it has been a happy hunting ground for him in the past. Turn our minds back to November 2014 and we see that Bishop made two assists in the Blues 0-2 victory there, and he had only just started to show his real promise. We all know Teddy has immense talent but he has largely gone under the radar of late, due to a catalogue of career-threatening injuries. If he is selected tomorrow, as expected, then he could once again shine.
The loss of our two principal strikers is a massive blow because they have been responsible this season for almost 50% of our goals! That said, it might give others the opportunity to excel, and I am referring in the main to Freddie Sears and Teddy Bishop, and manager Paul Lambert believes they are both sharp enough to start. How nice it will be to see Freddie playing down the middle, as he used to such could effect under Mick McCarthy. I would also prefer to see Bishop playing as an attacking midfielder alongside Alan Judge.
There is talk too of the return of Kane Vincent-Young and oh, how we have missed him. Even a place on the bench would get the blood churning, and I would certainly like to see talented Armando Dobra there as well. This kid from Albania is a real crowd pleaser – when he stays on the field!
Another name that we appear to have been overlooked of late is striker Ben Morris. I think he is a natural goalscorer, and only a serious injury has blighted his progress of late and the same goes for Jack Lankester, who was really starting to impress until major back-problems seem to curtail his career prospects.
Make no mistake. Town has a really good squad and that is why it should not be all doom and gloom when we lose some first-team favourites. There is still light at the end of the player’s tunnel and a win tomorrow would renew some much-needed self-belief.
And let me let Teddy Bishop have the last few words. “We are aware of our record against the teams around us but we have a chance to put it right. We’ve got Portsmouth, Coventry and Fleetwood all to play at Portman Road, and they are all teams who are competing with us. We need to take points off them. It’s something that has killed us a little bit this season but those games give us a chance to put it right.”
F.W. – editor of Vital Ipswich
