A much-used football adage was that you should never change a winning team, but as the modern game has progressed this expression seems a bit dated. When Ipswich Town won the FA Cup final in 1978 the Blues only had one substitute so it was tough to change a winning team, even if Sir Bobby Robson wanted to!
The game has certainly moved on since those days though and with the size of the squad dictating lots of personnel changes regularly, you could argue that winning teams are always evolving. If we look at Town’s last three games we can see that the defence has remained the same but in midfield and the attacking third manager Kieran McKenna has made changes. It’s understandable I suppose, when you take on board that the Blues have played three games in 7 days and this involved a lot of travelling!
Strangely, when Cameron Burgess came back into the team, we looked much more solid at the back, and in his first game back after his exploits with Australia, we kept a clean sheet against Millwall in that emphatic away victory recently. Then Wes Burns dropped to the bench against Swansea and Omari Hutchinson took his place. We won again, and Burgess was named as our Man of the Match – although we did concede!
Against Rotherham United, Wes Burns and Conor Chaplin started, and Hutchinson was placed on bench-warming duties. Of course, when he was introduced he produced his magic and scored our winner when it looked on the cards that we would drop two valuable points. In modern football, it is almost inevitable that the winning team will change not only their players but sometimes too, the formations they employ.
We’ve had a brilliant season. 69 points after 33 games matches the end of season total of Sunderland last year who made the play offs and achieved the highest points tally of any promoted side from League 1 during the previous decade. Wonderful achievement by the Blues. Compared with the quality and cost of the Leicester, Southampton and Leeds squads, the ‘under 10 million’ spent on the Town team is remarkable. Great work here by both Paul Cook and Kieran McKenna.
Given injuries, suspensions, loss of form and the need to adjust the team to suit contrasting playing styles of opponents over 46 matches, any manager will need to tweak team selections from game to game. Looking at the Rotherham match, yes we won it but the Blues made very hard work of it against a poor side fighting for their lives. 3-1 up at half time, we should have romped home in the second half but we didn’t. We were lucky to win.
We are an attractive, exciting and successful side to watch. Very much on the up and up. Booming crowds and great owners. Thanks due to the Americans and Mark Ashton.
Our strengths are in the midfield and up front. The area where we are suspect is in our defence. We play out from the back when building attacks. That is our style and it works well most of the time. But our season goals conceded, sticks out like a sore thumb compared with the other top 4 teams. Seen from afar (NZ) we need someone to marshall our defence in the way that Sam Morsy drives our midfield. Gary Burgess has come on by leaps and bounds this season, against my expectations I’ll add. But we need to sort out our defensive frailties (especially early on and late in games). If we don’t, we would/will find life in the Premier League a chastening experience. Ask Burnley, unstoppable in the Championship last season but in dire straights now and headed for the drop!
I could not agree more Richard. Our defence is my biggest concern, but what a season it has been – regardless of the final outcome!