Could Town Bridge The Premier Gulf?

It has been often said that there is a discernible gulf between Premier League clubs and those further down the divisions.

Certainly it is apparent that clubs that come up from the Championship – even as Champions, often struggle to stay the course when confronted with the big boys with the mega bucks!

This season so far however, the three clubs that were promoted from our division are not doing so badly and if it has not been for horrendous bad luck that saw three of their top players – including our very own Tyrone Mings incurring long term injuries, even The Cherries may have had enough in their locker to have survived? Who knows they still might!

Watford are the biggest success story so far and lie in a very respectable eleventh place and remain four points ahead of Premier favourites Chelsea after fourteen games.

Norwich are in much greater danger of returning from whence they came and are only three points off the bottom three in sixteenth as things stand and poor old Bournemouth are in eighteenth place and deep in the relegation mire as we approach Christmas.

A more accurate barometer of our current progress may be discovered on Friday in front on the Sky One Camera’s when the visitors to Portman Road are high flying Middlesborough.

They will be licking their wounds from their quarter final League cup defeat to Everton but how we perform against the team that are currently in an automatic promotion place in the Championship, might tell us more than when we fielded a reserve team earlier this year in the same competition against Manchester United?

Gerard Deulofeu was the great destroyer at The Riverside last night and the Barcelona reject made one and created another as Everton overwhelmed The Boro with their superior skills.

This was the first time that Middlesborough had conceded at home in seven games and they have have only conceded two goals at home this season prior to yesterday evening!

It will be a tough test against them at Portman Road on Friday evening of this there is little doubt.

I do recall however seeing them last season at Portman Road, when once again they were vying for an automatic promotion place and we won comfortably, with goals from Jonathan Parr and Daryl Murphy so could lightening strike twice?

On that occasion I can hardly remember them having a serious shot on goal but we would do very well to repeat that particular feat!

The one big hope is that we have had a whole week to recover from our excursions and Boro would have worked their little socks off trying to upset the odds last night of that I am quite sure.

With our three main strikers all looking good and getting goals, we have a chance I think but only if our defence holds firm?

And if we are looking for an example of how to bridge that Premier gap then there is perhaps no better example around than Jamie Vardy’s Leicester City.

They are currently joint top of the Premier League having been so close to an immediate return to the dreaded Championship last season and were only saved by winning six of their last seven Premiership encounters.

As the old football adage goes, ‘ It’s a funny old Game.’


Frank Weston Editor of Vital Ipswich