Before the season began I was excited. I looked at our strike force and thought we simply could not fail and I was so convinced, I placed a small wager on Town even winning the Sky bet Championship!
Thankfully, I decided to cover my potential losses by betting on them to reach the play-off’s too but at the moment at least, even this seems anything but certain.
Looking down the table we now find ourselves in a very humbling 13th place and in the bottom half of the table – if only just.
We have picked up just seven points from a possible twenty seven in our last nine matches and this is more akin to relegation form than anything else it must be said.
To think that we started the season on top of the world then this is quite a major climb down and a loss of form, allied to a lack of points is making us feel all very uncomfortable just now.
What perhaps worries me most is our strike force. Daryl Murphy who top scored on 27 goals less term is yet to score and we are three months into a new season!
Freddy Sears has been pushed out wide and appears to have lost his goal scoring boots and David McGoldrick is also struggling to find the net – although in fairness to him, his time in the team has been limited in the main to bit part roles.
That leaves Brett Pitman who I had high hopes for because throughout his career he has averaged one goal in every two games but that was before he came to Ipswich Town but he should never be used as a target man so again, he is played out of position.
I suppose when you analyse the front line you also have to analyse the midfield because when a team is firing on all cylinders these guys are usually the catalyst for creating goal scoring opportunities but playing both Jonathan Douglas and Cole Skuse there means that the creative element of the team is seriously lacking and how we miss young Teddy Bishop!
I think the reason we looked a lot better against Nottingham Forest was because Kevin Bru was back in the team but even when Mick McCarthy decided to go with three up top for the first 55 minutes, we still did not manage a shot at goal so confidence is obviously exceedingly low as well.
Looking back on the season so far, it is easy to see where our manager’s mind swung. It was that horrific 5-1 defeat at Brighton that changed everything and what made it worse was that it was our first appearance on Sky this season!
In is post-match interview McCarthy indicated that we played too openly but if we are honest they only had six shots and five of them found the net so this may well have been a false awakening?
Next up we had to batten down the hatches for a 0-1 victory at Leeds and our manager was convinced that this was the way forward – or perhaps backward, if we gaze retrospectively at our results ever since!
Of late we have drawn three times at home and lost a couple of times away and winning seems to be the hardest thing to do.
How close we came last time around at Forest but it was not to be and we all only too aware of our tendency to throw points away.
Against Cardiff City on Saturday at Portman Road nothing less than a win will be good enough and even that won’t take us too far up the division as there is now a seven point gap between us and those illusive play-off places.
There is hope however that two home games in succession can kick start our season again and boy how we need it!
Frank Weston – Editor of Vital Ipswich
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