After the Fulham game on August 9th Town fans were full of hope. One Month and that hope has gone.
The pre-season had filled us with hope. We were undefeated and our defence seemed very solid. We had just brought in a very good back-up keeper and David McGoldrick seemed to be finally on the mend.
Our first game of the season, which coincided with our first live Sky television coverage, was at home to Fulham and not only did we beat the former Premier League side but we did it in some style with goals from two of our main strikers in Daryl Murphy and Didz so what could be better – promotion here we come!
That was on the 9th August and just one month later, we are all a bit down in the dumps. After the wonderful Fulham victory, we travelled to Crawley in the Capital One Cup. We have had a very poor record of late in this competition and I guess we were all hoping that Mick McCarthy would field a half decent team. Instead he picked a group of untried youngsters, our reserve keeper and only Hyam, Berre and Chambers were regular first team selections and hard as we tried, we lost.We also lost our momentum and since that disappointing Tuesday evening in Crawley, we seem to have gone from bad to worse.
Reading away on the 16th August ended in a cruel 1-0 defeat before we scrapped a valuable point at Birmingham in an entertaining 2-2 draw. On Saturday 23rd August we were again on Sky but this time against our staunchest rivals and again it ended in bitter disappointment, going down once more by a single goal but lose we did.
Our last game away to Derby was a game of two halves. In the first we were largely anonymous only to find our football feet in the second and earn a creditable draw.
We now sit in 19th place in The Championship and our first encounter of the month of September will be against high-flying Millwall, managed of course by Ian Holloway. They are already into double figures on the points tally so it will be another big test in a season that so far has failed to live up to expectations.
Yes, it is early days I know but we are already playing catch up in a league that shows no mercy.
Frank Weston – Editor Vital Ipswich
