Fourth in the table and two points off the top! Has Christmas come early for Town?
I have to keep pinching myself to convince myself it is true.
Ipswich Town football club are finally on the way back after so many disappointing seasons and isn’t it such a lovely feeling!
As I have said before, I did not want Mick McCarthy in charge. In fact of all the potential candidates on offer I found him the least appealing if I am brutally honest.
It is not that I didn’t admire him as a person but his rather dour approach towards the game did not fill me with much enthusiasm.
I was of the view that the teams he had managed in the past reflected his personality. They were rugged and hard to beat but far from what you might call entertaining.
I knew he would sort out the defence first though because that has always been his strong point.
Under Paul Jewell especially, our defence was our achilles heel and although it improved under Roy Keane, we then became draw specialists, which in football these days won`t get you very far and of course it didn’t.
Now of course we are winning more games than we tend to draw and some of those draws we could well have won and defeats are becoming a rare thing thankfully.
I do not entirely agree with Mick that a point is always a good thing but it is not a bad one when we are able to win so many matches as we have of late.
What I did not expect from a Mick McCarthy side was such good football. Nor did I expect us to sometimes play with three up front and our bold attacking options must be accredited to Terry Connor as much as anyone I guess.
These two may walk around like to odd couple at times but they certainly seem to know what a winning formula is and appear to work very well as a team.
Town are now producing some excellent flowing football that in my eyes is not reminiscent of the Wolves of old and is quite frankly a breath of football fresh air!
On that happy note, let us hope that Christmas has not come early and we can afford to dream of a belated Christmas present in May.
Now that`s a thought!
Frank Weston-Editor of Vital Ipswich
