Great Display Tainted By Dropped Points

It is hard to put your finger on why it happened. Town were in control of the game and should have extended their lead yet further before six minutes of injury time turned the game on its head!

I forget who it was who said you should never let a two goal lead slip and to do so in the last six minutes of injury time is almost unforgivable but the saving grace for the blues was their performance on the day which was outstanding until of course we conceded our first goal.

That it should arrive so late is guaranteed to give all blues supporters the jitters and then to concede another one just before the final whistle meant that to supporters and players alike this felt like a miserable defeat!

The reality of course is that we would probably have taken a point before a ball was kicked. I had predicted a 2-2 draw and the only small consolation of being right on this occasion is that it was my only winning bet of the day!

There were of course mitigating circumstances too if we examine the game more closely. Town fielded two 17 year olds and although they were not directly responsible for the goals they were seen to be physically tiring as the game wore on and Maitland-Niles was substituted with a few minutes remaining.

Injuries to defensive pair Jonathan Parr and Christophe Berra meant that young Josh Emmanuel played right back and the catalyst for our change in fortunes could well have been the departure of Kevin Bru, who had been outstanding that afternoon and scored a superb goal.

Interestingly this time around it was not our strike force that got us the goals and both Bru and Fraser were not afraid to shoot on sight throughout much of the match which was encouraging.

We all felt that we had been robbed I guess but extraordinarily, it is out defence that is causing us most problems these days.

Having seen us leak goals a plenty in pre-season too, this must be serious cause for concern for manager Mick McCarthy and I am still not convinced that we have anything other than a pair of rather average goalies. Once again Bialkowski made a series of great reflex saves before he conceded two goals in the last six minutes – although it is difficult to point the finger of blame at him alone.

Tomorrow night against Stevenage in the first round of the Capital One Cup McCarthy will test the overall strength of his squad again and he plans to make wholesale changes to the team that drew on Saturday at Brentford.

Here is the team that he is expecting to field at Portman Road tomorrow night.

Gerken, Chambers, Yorwerth, Berra, Kenlock, Coke, Douglas, Tabb, Toure, Pitman, McGoldrick.

Kevin Bru could also be out for a while with a torn hamstring which he sustained in training this morning apparently.


Frank Weston – Editor of Vital Ipswich.