Are Town The Nearly Men Again?

The 3-0 defeat at St.Andrews was painful enough, coming as it did after our tame exit from the FA Cup at the hands of Portsmouth.

Yet what makes matters even worse is when manager Mick McCarthy tries to convince us that the squad does not need refreshing!

After Jonathan Parr and Tommy Oar moved on to pastures new, you would have thought that McCarthy would have found the need to strengthen again – especially in view of the poor showing of our second string.

This however is not part of his action plan. He is still seems deluded into thinking that he has a good enough squad and the best since he took on the job over three years ago.

I just don’t get it to be honest. We seem as a club to lack any sort of ambition and our loyal fans surely deserve something better than the stuff were are serving up at present.

How many times over the last couple of seasons for example have we taken a lead and then tried in vain to hang on to it – only to fall to a sucker punch – or punches, in the case of Brentford at the start of the league campaign?

After toying with a passing game that backfired when we lost 5-1 away at Reading we have reverted to hoof-ball which makes a complete mockery of the beautiful game.

Once again this is not the way forward in my view. We should be going for the jugular when we go in front – even if the only reason is that our defence is so porous it is like a bucket with a hole in it and you just know it is only a matter of time before we concede and those long-ball tactics are painful to watch.

William Blake once remarked that ‘ No bird soars so high if it soars with its own wings.’ Sometimes I think we are more akin to a dodo and we all know why they are not around anymore!

Our lack of ambition in the FA Cup still hurts. That was a game we throw away almost before a ball had been kicked and it was only thanks to a late Ryan Fraser fluke that we earned a replay!

To field eleven reserves in the return tie at Portsmouth was an insult to all our long suffering travelling contingent and as ‘JollyJourno’ said in his T.W.T.D. blog it was an absolute disgrace and an insult to long suffering supporters.

This is what he had to say on the subject. If last night’s FA Cup third round defeat to a team two divisions below was a one-off, I might not feel this way. But the loss was part of a pattern that, for me, shows not just contempt for the greatest club football competition in the world, but contempt for Ipswich Town’s fans.

How right he is. I can understand to some extent why McCarthy did it so that he could rest first teamers but once again it seemed to serve no useful purpose as we were roundly beaten at Birmingham – although our first team players had had an extended break!

Now we are down to eight place in the Sky Bet Championship and in a vulnerable position if we are to realise our play-off ambitions.

After so many years stuck in this purgatory of a division, it looks as if we lack the ambition to move forward any time soon.

The transfer window will soon be closed and the only bit of news on the transfer front is that has-been Jerome Thomas is training with the Town squad at the moment.

The 32 year old former Arsenal and Crystal Palace winger has been out of action for some time and has been struggling to find a club after being unable to agree terms with Hearts in Scotland.

The blues will take a look at him in a closed doors friendly but it is many years since he was considered to be above the norm so not much to get excited about there I guess.

There is hope however that our defence might be a little less jittery in future, as Dean Gerken is expected to be out for about a month with a shoulder injury and this will open the way for Bartosz Bialkowski to resume duties in goal at long last!

Frank Weston – editor of Vital Ipswich