How many times has it happened under the Mick McCarthy regime. We take the lead but we cannot hang on to it.
Injury time goals are bad enough but to lose so many points this way is positively galling and you have to ask if our tactics are wrong?
It happened of course at the City Ground last year too when the late late show got Forest a belated point and so it was to prove again on Saturday.
In fairness though, it was hard to work out how the ref found 6 minutes of injury time to add but this is no excuse. We have made injury time goals leaks a very bad habit.
In our first game of the season we got off to a flyer against Brentford and when at 90 minutes we still lead 0-2 it appeared to be three away points in the bag but of course two late injury time goals ensured that we had to make do with a point against all the odds!
Personally, I think part of the problem is that we do not kill the opposition off. We seem to sit back and let them come at us, when if only we continued to do what got us ahead in the first place, we may not find ourselves in the bottom half of the table and seven points off those illusive play-off places!
On Saturday at Forest, Mick McCarthy went from being very positive by starting with a 4-3-3 line up to changing it to 4-4-2 in the second half and then replacing striker Freddie Sears with defender Piotr Malarczyk whilst at the same time giving the Forest renewed hope.
We all know that by nature Mick McCarthy is a negative manager. He might even admit it himself if he was pressed on the subject. Sadly for him, this negativity only works if you are getting good results and not when you are on the verge of victory only to defend desperately in the forlorn hope of hanging on to what you have got.
As a human being I quite like Mick McCarthy. He is an honest fellow if rather delusional at times and his blind faith in certain players is commendable but ultimately perhaps the cause of all his woes.
There has been signs that he is finally beginning to listen to what the public are saying and by playing Bartosz Bialkowski in the Under 21’s this evening, there is hope that he might consider him for Cardiff on Saturday but there are no guarantees.
The Supporters club A.G.M. on Thursday should be an interesting affair as both Mick McCarthy and Terry Connor are in attendance!
Frank Weston – Editor of Vital Ipswich
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