It was Town’s World Cup-winning manager, Sir Alf Ramsey who coined the phrase “never change a winning team.” Last night Paul Lambert should have done the same. I understand his thinking. The field at London Road had cut-up badly, and this encouraged our manager to abandon his passing game and employ instead a more robust attacking style. It only partly worked.
He heeded my advice and started with two strikers. It quickly became obvious that James Norwood and Troy Parrott were made for each other and the new tactical dimension that many of us have been calling out for some time. Lambert felt that he did not have the right players at his disposal to make this work before, but until Norwood limped off at the interval, it was working a treat! The same cannot be said for the inclusion of Stephen Ward and Luke Chambers, who replaced the impressive Luke Matheson, and the born-again Myles Kenlock!
Unfortunately, on this showing, you could see why Lambert dropped them in the first place, but of course, he reasoned that on a pitch as torn up as this their physicality might aid our cause. Sadly, this was not to be. The pair of them were well below par and we no longer had any pace down the flanks to utilize effectively.
Never change a winning team. It may seem a little old fashioned now, but when Ramsey uttered the phrase, it was before the World Cup final at Wembley. Everyone was calling for a fit-again Jimmy Greaves to be reinstated into the team. But Ramsey kept faith with his replacement Geoff Hurst, who went on to reward him with that famous hat-trick!
I am not inclined to criticise Lambert just for the sake of it, but I think in hindsight, he would probably accept that this was an error of judgement. Town went with a 4-4-2 formation, which included a narrow diamond-shaped midfield. It worked well for the first half-hour but the longer the game went on, the more one felt that our defence was coming under more and more pressure.
On Saturday, we will see whether Lambert has learned his lesson. Our trip to Shrewsbury Town will not be easy. They defeated Sunderland last night 2-1 and they will give us a very stern test. I am hopeful that the gaffer will revert to the team that performed so well against Blackpool – with the notable exception of Alan Judge; who was back to his worst last night and could be replaced by the very accomplished midfielder Josh Harrop. Let us hope that goalscorer James Norwood recovers from his minor knock as well.
Just been reading a report on Brentford’s excellent 3-1 away win in the Championship at Reading. The relevance of this to ITFC is just how the respective performances of our team have diverged in the past decade. Steady progress for the Bees and steady decline for us. Brentford last played top flight football soon after the Second World War. But look at them, a well managed club that are clearly going places after decades of failure. Town are going in the opposite direction. Now back to us and the Shrewsbury game. Funnily enough I think we will win. Don’t know why but I just do. But I have nil faith that we will be anywhere near the play offs come the end of the season. On a brighter note, good to see James Norwood back and scoring but my is he injury prone. Bit like the walking doctor’s note that was David McGoldrick!
And look at David McGoldrick now Richard. He never seems to get injured anymore! We had an injury crisis under Mick McCarthy too, so what are we doing wrong? Whether it is our training methods or surfaces that are the problem is difficult to ascertain, but we suffer more than most, that’s fur sure!
The injuries have gone on for too long now for it to be a just a coincidence or bad luck and it should be a priority for Evans and O’Neil to look into and see where the club is lacking or can improve.
Webster is another like McGoldrick, who had injury issues here and has gone on to do well and stay largely injury free.
Where-as the players we’ve signed seem to turn into injury prone players whilst at the club, either lots of little injuries like Norwood and Bishop or long term injuries which the players never seem to get closer to recovering from like KVY and Nydam