The Blues Must Face The Football Facts.

This has been a largely forgettable season so far and made more so by that horrendous display against Nottingham Forest, in front of the Sky camera’s last Saturday night!

Town supporters are justifiably outraged, not only by the results so far but also the quality of football they have bore witness to.

Season ticket holders are beginning to throw in the towel as well, such is the standard of football on display and that result last Saturday should really have put the cat amongst the pigeons!

The Blues must face up to the facts. We are 17th in the Sky Bet Championship and seemingly going backwards and even our manager can no longer explain – or excuse the performances from his team.

It would not be so bad if a catalogue of hard luck stories had blighted our chances of late but we have created so little that even the match referees are having an easy time of it because we are not even coming close to scoring most of the time.

It could be argued that Tom Lawrence might have been awarded a penalty in one of the two incidents last week but even if manager Mick McCarthy felt that the second one was a stonewall penalty, I certainly didn’t. Lawrence turned sharply and then fell but to see what really happened you have to keep your eyes on the defender and what he did and that was absolutely nothing.

Next up we face Queens Park Rangers, who have just installed Ian Holloway as their new boss and are already he is making inroads.

Last week they defeated Norwich City in his first game in charge so we can expect a real battle at Portman Road on Saturday and if we are to stand any chance of winning, we will have to improve 100 percent and that means creating so much more than before.

Holloway is back at the club that he left in 2006 and he is already enjoying his life in London. As we know, he is a charismatic manager who once applied for the Ipswich post and being a good friend of Mick McCarthy he will know how we will set up, which is usually quite predictable anyway.

Although they fired Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink earlier this month, QPR already find themselves two points ahead of Ipswich in 13th place in the table and they will be coming to Portman Road on a bit of a high now that Olly is back at the helm.

Mick McCarthy could have done with less testing opposition in his attempts to get supporters on his side and he will know only too well, that another defeat at home would be simply unforgivable.

Frank Weston – Editor of Vital Ipswich