Town Stop The Rot In Lancashire

Town needed this win badly and former player and Blues Captain Mick Mills may well have been right when he said that two draws against Birmingham and Wigan would not be anywhere near as satisfying as one win and a loss and three points!

The reality of course is that we are a very long way off those play-off places and surely nine points is too much to make up at the halfway point of the season?

That said, in what has been a thoroughly depressing first half of the campaign for Town supporters, who will be grateful for any bit of good news and yesterday in Lancashire there was some.

Brett Pitman was back in the side and he scored twice and the winner came from substitute David McGoldrick and there were signs at long last, that he is getting back to his best form of old.

It has been long overdue but he not only scored the winner but laid off the ball to Brett Pitman for the equalizer and gave Town a vital foothold in a game that manager Mick McCarthy rightly said, we had no right to win and if it had not been for the introduction of McGoldrick we probably wouldn’t have done.

There was another standout performance from our Polish keeper Bartosz Bialkowski and he kept us in it when our backs were against the walls, as The Latics pushed for a third that would surely have ended any hopes we had a getting something from this crucial Championship encounter.

Defensively however it was another far from perfect display from the Tractor Boys and Mick McCarthy will not be pleased with some sloppy defending that gave away the first especially.

We now have to more home games coming up against Fulham and Bristol City before the year is out and if we were to win them both, then suddenly that play-off place would surely be something to aim for once more.

Sadly however, our home form has been very disappointing so far this season and we would have to improve on this massively if we were to take all six points at Portman Road against two very difficult opponents.

But for now at least, we can take some comfort from this result and the fact that we have two strikers who have re-found their prowess in front of goal.

Frank Weston – Editor of Vital Ipswich