The View From Churchmans

Wha-hey! Three points at home for the first time in a couple of months, so let’s at least be grateful for that. My records don’t go back far enough to have been able to have told you the last time Ipswich went six home games without a win. However, I doubt this performance will have changed the “Jim Out” brigade’s opinion of the state of the club. It really wasn’t much different to Saturday: Forest were poorer than Blackpool, but even so, the only difference in the two matches was an own goal. And it probably speaks volumes that the winner was scored by a rare foray into the opposition box by the right back, with the assist (and an excellent one too) by a centre half. There seemed to be no way any of the strikers or attacking midfielders were going to score.

There were some occasional decent moves from Ipswich, but even if they got as far as the strikers, their terrible first touches and astonishingly wayward shooting meant that the Forest keeper was rarely troubled. Town had most of the possession, but Richard Wright made more saves than his opposite number, and had Forest’s late chance (which hit the post) gone in, it wouldn’t have been a travesty. There were way too many basic mistakes being made at the back, the finishing was awful, and the dead balls invariably wasted.

If you think the problem with the club is that things aren’t going anywhere, there was nothing to change your mind tonight. Still, we all got bits of paper from the owner saying that the manager’s staying and there’s still everything to play for. So that’s all right then.

Overall Town performance:
5/10 – the effort was certainly reasonable enough, but there were far too many mistakes in all areas of the pitch

Opposition quality:
4/10 – really not much to offer, although I don’t think this was anything like their first team

Referee:
6/10 – just about kept things under control, although there were moments when certain players started to leave the foot in

Match excitement:
4/10 – another one we’ll all forget quite quickly

Opposition supporters:
5/10 – not bad for a Wednesday night, although not that entertaining

Player ratings as ever 1 to 5 for each of effort/achievement…

WRIGHT 7 (3/4) made a couple of terrific saves, and was reliable throughout

WRIGHT 6 (3/3) combined with his captain for the goal almost as if to say “we might as well have a go, nobody else is going to score tonight”; McAULEY 5 (3/2) made a whole string of uncharacteristic mistakes in the first half; BRUCE 6 (3/3) had a solid if unspectacular game; and THATCHER 5 (2/3) tested the fine line between getting stuck in and being reckless, and just got away with it.

HAYNES 4 (2/2) was really subdued again; MILLER 7 (4/3) worked hard for the whole match; QUINN 5 (3/2) ran around a lot, but did little to justify his strange inclusion in the centre ahead of Norris and Garvan; and CIVELLI 6 (3/3) again produced a few nice touches, and looks promising, but didn’t get involved as much as most of us there would have liked.

COUNAGO 4 (3/1) is just so predictable with his turns now that he’s hardly ever troubling opposing defences, and is totally symptomatic of the toothless nature of Town’s atacking play; and STEAD 5 (3/2) whilst hardworking and looking clever, showed the first touch of, er, something with a very bad first touch, offered nothing in the air as usual, and just didn’t threaten.

From the bench, WALTERS looked keen, NORRIS was invisible on the left wing, and GARVAN had a few minutes in which he managed to get into some decent positions but wasted what he had. Which sums up the whole team really.