Let’s be honest, Town did not play at all badly yesterday, but it was in the finishing department we found ourselves wanting. The Blues had 64% of possession away from home and 14 shots at goal to the home side’s 8. Looking more closely at the stats tells its own story, as only three of our goal-bound attempts were on target. We had 12 corners to Bolton’s 5, but we made poor use of most of them. James Norwood was back to his worse, and once again, his petulance got him booked. It is little wonder that manager Kiron McKenna wisely took him off.
So, it’s a case of two steps forward and one step back. Two wins on the bounce should have been three, but we failed to take advantage of large amounts of possession, and we paid the ultimate price when some woeful defending ensured that we would leave Lancashire licking our wounds. I quite like George Edmunson, but he was guilty of a horrendous back pass that knocked the stuffing out of us at a critical stage of the match. He almost did something similar in the first half with a wayward header and had it not been for some excellent cover by Luke Woolfenden, that would have led to a goal as well. Sadly, like Toto Nsiala, he always has a mistake in him, but technically he is far more gifted.
Christian Walton was also guilty of needlessly conceding the first when he could not hold onto debutant Aaron Morley’s 74th-minute shot, and it fell conveniently into the path of the onrushing Keiron Lee. It was a poor goal to give away, and with just 16 minutes remaining meant that we now had our backs to the wall.
Our defence was poor all day and only Luke Woolfenden came out of it with any credit. Matt Penney was quite simply awful. Pass after pass went astray, and he could not manage to get a single decent cross into the penalty box, as he dawdled on the ball and often lost control of it. He was undoubtedly the weakest link at the back and needs to be replaced. Kane Vincent-Young is the obvious candidate to replace him, as he did yesterday when Penney was substituted on 70 minutes.
This was the Ipswich of old under Paul Cook. Town played good possession football without a cutting edge, and James Norwood was the Norwood of old, barking at officials and ineffective up front. Macauley Bonne must have felt like a lone striker again because he had little support from an out of sorts Norwood.
If we had converted some of our possession into goals, we would have won the game yesterday, but it was a bad day at the office both for our attack and our defence, so now we must dust ourselves down and focus on Accrington Stanley at Portman Road next Saturday afternoon.
The only positive to be taken from this woeful performance is that Kieran M will have learnt more from it than from his two previous Town wins.
I can only repeat my previous comments about James Norwood. An enigma if ever there was one. A combination of undoubted ability but with childish petulance spoiling it all. He really just need to grow up! In a few years time his football career will be behind him and he needs to make hay while the sun shines. By scoring goals that help Ipswich gain promotion and then consolidate in the Championship before pushing for a second promotion. He’s capable of doing well but he needs to be a reliable performer, week in weeks out as George Edmondson normally is (Saturday excepted where he got brain ache).
You have nailed it, Richard. I could not agree more. James Norwood has lots of talent, but this is sullied by his childish temperament. As for George Edmundson, his poor performance on Saturday is why Glasgow Rangers were happy to see him go. He has undoubted central defensive abilities but he is prone to the odd horror show, so if he can stamp this out of his game, he has real potential to progress rapidly.