Ipswich Town vs Derby County Match Thread

[King Kevin]

12 hours ago, Mckram said:

Really feel for the Derby fans travelling there tonight. Should all be refunded. 

My bloody Rams TV should be refunded on two counts one the team didn't turn up and neither did my video.

[Cam the Ram]

2 minutes ago, Carnero said:

Nah. Check again. Only Norwich & Sheff Utd are achieving 2+ points per game away at teams from the bottom half.

 

Yep, my mistake. My maths went to crap then ?

My point still stands though, we've got quite comfortably the worst record away at bottom half teams and there's no sign of it improving. Thankfully we don't have many away games left to play against them, but it's certainly concerning to see us struggle against them so often

[Day]

5 minutes ago, Cam the Ram said:

There's a couple of teams like Hull and Brentford who have had big swings in the table, but for the most part 8 of the bottom 12; Ipswich, Bolton, Rotherham, Reading, Millwall, Wigan, Stoke and Sheffield Wednesday have all been a bit crap. Even if you can find stats to improve how it looks for us, we've all watched us against those previously mentioned teams and 90% of the time we've been awful and outplayed 

The intention wasn’t to spray perfume on us, just to be fair that’s all. Like I said in another post it doesn’t really matter where the teams are the table as long as you collect enough points needed.

In recent seasons we’ve been a team that “couldn’t do it against the top 6” to now “we can’t beat teams at the bottom”, the time you nail it and beat the teams in the top 6 and the bottom is when you walk the league as others have.

[BathRam72]

I know the performance wasn't that good last night. Lost cohesion etc etc etc. Maybe down to the changes made.

But we must also respect the fact that Ipswich are fighting for their lives, if they have any aspiration of staying in this league (Which I fully believe they do) Then they are not going to capitulate to ANY team and they are going to battle for every point.

Others will go there and get a break but I bet a few will come away with nothing.

A team at the bottom of the league is just as dangerous as one fighting for promotion. 

Might not have the flair players of the Leeds, Norwich or West Broms of this world but they will fight like a rabid dog.

 

[Leicester Ram]

Lampard’s a first season manager, we’ll have games like last night where we don’t play it right.

Playing away against a desperate team is always tricky and Ipswich looked way more up for it than we did. Probably not the best game to have Johnson and King starting their first game for a while.

He’ll learn for it and luckily we’re still in a very decent position.

Frustrating night though, should have buried them early.

[TuffLuff]

It’s maybe also worth pointing out how many chances are spilling to someone who we wouldn’t expect to score. Most notably Tomori last night having to very good opportunities. Don’t know whether thats a ‘luck’ thing or are ‘we dont create enoug chances so it’s noticable’ thing

[LazloW]

Must admit only watched the second half and followed the first on here.  Clearly wasn’t a good display (as the Sky commentator never tired of stating).

I think it’s too easy to say ‘if only we’d played Huddlestone’ we would have won.  We’ll never know for sure so it’s just speculation.  However poorly we played, from what I saw we still created enough chances to win the game, particularly after Bennett and Nugent came on.  Thought Mason in particular was quite effective.  It’s all ifs, buts and maybes... but as with Preston, we were arguably the width of the woodwork from maybe getting all three points.  

Clearly, Ipswich created quite a few chances too but how many saves did Roos have to make?  Not that many (in the second half at least). 

We seemed to wake up in the last 10 minutes.  This was particularly when players started to drive forward with the ball a bit more. I thought the same against Hull.  Rather than pass, pass, pass all the time, we caused more problems with people carrying the ball.  

Anyway, it’s been said time and time again, but I really don’t think there is a huge difference between the top and bottom of this league.  I’d obviously rather see us play better than that and beating the bottom team - and I was shouting at the tele about a lot of silly decisions the players seem to make - but I soon got over it.  Even in a football sense, it isn’t the end of the world. 

 

[erathirea]

I'm going to try and be objective with my ratings...

Roos - 7. Couldn't do anything about the goal. Looked steady when called upon, claimed a few dangerous looking crosses and was in the right position most of the time.

Bogle - 6. Steady, unspectacular. Guilty of (and this will be a common theme across 3/4 of last night's defense) backing off too much and effectively allowing the opposition to put crosses in needlessly. Tried some fancy things going forward. Some worked, some didn't.

Keogh - 5. Not up to recent standards. Backed off too much and made a few too many risky passes for my liking. Was bailed out by Tomori on a couple of occasions. Not sure I remember him actually making a tackle.

Tomori - 7. Strongest link of the back 4 last night, his pace was vital in stopping them getting behind. Couple of sloppy passes.

Malone - 6. Average. He provided us with some of our better moments going forward, particularly in the last 10 minutes, and didn't defend too badly. Couple of mistakes, which people will jump on, and too much backing off, but he also got us out of a couple of holes when we'd passed ourselves into trouble.

Johnson - Contraversial 7. He started poorly, I'll say that, but after the first 10-20 minutes I thought he settled into his 'role' fairly well. He's not got the passing of Huddlestone, so we can't expect that of him, but he broke up the play well and had his best game since September for my money.

King - 4. At fault for the goal, and too many loose balls. Hopefully it's all rustiness. Wasn't entirely sure whether he was meant to be playing the "Bryson role" or lying deep, which isn't a good sign.

Holmes - 6. Had a couple of nice runs, but probably tried to do too much and occasionally missed the simple ball. Not one of his better games, though he gains a point for his goalline clearance.

Wilson - 5. Poor by his standards. Nothing seemed to come off for him last night, and wasn't surprised to see him as the first subbed. Maybe should have started in the middle with Holmes out wide? Who knows.

Lawrence - 7. Got the goal a player with his mentality needs. Hopefully he can kick on from this. Put in some dangerous balls from free kicks, but needs to work on his corners I think. I couldn't help but noticing he played a lot more intelligently, looking for passes rather than shooting from 30 yards. Put up well with some strong challenges. Best he's played for a few games.

Waghorn - 6. Lot of running, not much service. Nearly nicked it for us at the end, and he worked tirelessly. Think he might have benefited from Bennett coming on earlier.

 

Nugent - 5 As a striker, your job is to score goals. *SHOULD* have scored at the death, and lost a point by not doing getting his shot on target. Not sure where he goes from here. His confidence must be shot. Other than that, though, he put in a typically Nugent performance, harrying the defense without offering a great deal.

Bennett - 7 Best of our subs last night. Full of endeavour. Yes, he lacks real 'quality' at this level, but he put Ipswich on the back foot by simply running at them. Won free kicks, and provided some much needed impetus, particularly in the last 10 

Bryson - 6. Calm, composed, and creative. Not quite the impact of Bennett, but the game changed. The bhoy (pun intended) has got a bit of his old spark back in recent weeks.

MOTM... Sod it, Johnson. Think he did very well in a difficult atmosphere.

 

Summary: A poor performance. We basically looked like (as was the worry) we had turned up expecting to win. We coasted through the first half. I don't know what caused it, but at the start of the second half, whenever an Ipswich player had the ball out wide, we *immediately* seemed to pack the box. There was one point, just before the goal, I think, where a 50:50 in the middle of the park went out wide, and immediately the back 4, Johnson, King and someone else (possibly Wilson) sprinted straight into the penalty area to mark the 3 Ipswich players. No one went to the ball, there was no hint of trying to stop the cross come in.

We spent too much time backing off. If it's a 2 on 4 situation, one of you can afford to put in a tackle. Last night, Keogh was the worst culprit for it, but only Tomori looked like he wanted to make challenges. Going forward we never got out of 3rd gear. We tried to do fancy stuff without doing the simple stuff.... until the last 10 minutes. That's what convinces me we had the wrong mindset. It's as if the clock hit 80 minutes and the team suddenly remembered they were expected to win, and weren't winning. I saw next to no urgency until that point. Worth remembering, of course, that we are still missing Marriott and Mount.

[KCG]

Good comment from erathirea and similar to the way I saw the game. Johnson did surprisingly well considering he hadn't play first team football since his sending off. Still came in for plenty of negative comments on here though.

Frank obviously feels Huddlestone hasn't got 2 games a week in him, but then why have him as a sub?

Thought Nugent and Bryson brought energy to the side, which is an odd thing to have to say! Pity about Nugent's shooting boots though. In his prime he would have buried that!

[Mucker1884]

15 hours ago, Hanny said:

Saying the Championship is not a tough league, is like saying Mandelbrot set of complex numbers is a little convoluted. Seems a bit disingenuous. 

^^^This^^^

 

 

 

 

... erm... probably!

[England Ram]

I'm going to try and be objective with my ratings (and see how different they are to erathirea to show how footy is about opinions)...

Roos - 7. Couldn't do anything about the goal. Looked steady when called upon, claimed a few dangerous looking crosses and was in the right position most of the time.

(AGREED)

Bogle - 6. Steady, unspectacular. Guilty of (and this will be a common theme across 3/4 of last night's defense) backing off too much and effectively allowing the opposition to put crosses in needlessly. Tried some fancy things going forward. Some worked, some didn't.

(Rating of 6 is fair, but got caught out of position too often and this is one of the reason too many crosses come in from his side, he is too busty recovering to get close enough when he's not backing off)

Keogh - 5/6. Not up to recent standards. Backed off too much and made a few too many risky passes for my liking. Was bailed out by Tomori on a couple of occasions. Not sure I remember him actually making a tackle.

(Disagree on the rating mine's a 6 and some of the info. His biggest issue was having no one of any skill to be able to give an out ball to in the midfield and Ipswich choosing to press super high along with the midfield 2 not actually covering the back 4 compounded the issue. Agree on his overall poor defending though)

Tomori - 7./6 Strongest link of the back 4 last night, his pace was vital in stopping them getting behind. Couple of sloppy passes.

(Disagree with the score, mine is a 6, He put himself and others in trouble with too many passes but had the problem Keogh had with no one in the middle able to receive a pass and do anything with it. If Keogh made the amount of positional mistakes and passing mistakes he makes in a game there would be a witch hunt!)

Malone - 6. Average. He provided us with some of our better moments going forward, particularly in the last 10 minutes, and didn't defend too badly. Couple of mistakes, which people will jump on, and too much backing off, but he also got us out of a couple of holes when we'd passed ourselves into trouble.

(AGREED)

Johnson - Contraversial 7/4. He started poorly, I'll say that, but after the first 10-20 minutes I thought he settled into his 'role' fairly well. He's not got the passing of Huddlestone, so we can't expect that of him, but he broke up the play well and had his best game since September for my money.

(COMPLETELY DISAGREE!!) My rating is a 4 along with King. His inability to control and pass a ball cost us much more than just his role. As a team we were playing with 10 men (or even 9 if you include King) most of the time. The back 4 couldn't break the press because he couldn't control the ball quick enough or pass it accurately enough. It was very obvious early in the game we had to bypass him and the team did, went long most of the time and thus didn't play as we should. Yes, he put himself about a bit, but was often late and out of position as a defensive mid. Along with his passing etc his and Kings performance cost us the most.

King - 4. At fault for the goal, and too many loose balls. Hopefully it's all rustiness. Wasn't entirely sure whether he was meant to be playing the "Bryson role" or lying deep, which isn't a good sign.

(Agree in part) Party at fault for the goal, Holmes and Johnson didn't help matters. Agree with the rest, but would add his inability to pass as an extra, although he found space well.

Holmes - 6. Had a couple of nice runs, but probably tried to do too much and occasionally missed the simple ball. Not one of his better games, though he gains a point for his goalline clearance.

(Agree on the 6 just for the goal line clearance. otherwise he'd have been a 5. Missed the simple ball a lot but also threatened a little bit going forward. Not helped by us going long most of the time and others inability to pass the ball as well.)

Wilson - 5. Poor by his standards. Nothing seemed to come off for him last night, and wasn't surprised to see him as the first subbed. Maybe should have started in the middle with Holmes out wide? Who knows.

(Agree on the 5, but would add the caviat that he was injured early in a challenge that should have been a yellow. Hate that tactic on a good young player, but it worked)

Lawrence - 7./6 Got the goal a player with his mentality needs. Hopefully he can kick on from this. Put in some dangerous balls from free kicks, but needs to work on his corners I think. I couldn't help but noticing he played a lot more intelligently, looking for passes rather than shooting from 30 yards. Put up well with some strong challenges. Best he's played for a few games.

(Disagree on the score. Only gets a 6 because of his goal. Such a frustrating player to watch. Actually cheats as a team mate. I'll give him that he actually looked up and passed the ball more than usually which was a step in the right direction. However, he does not press properly as as front man, he plays at it, he rarely tracks back and when he does he gives away foul after foul because he just barges in to the player. I'd be interested in his 'heat map' to see if he does move more than 30 yards in a game.

Waghorn - 6. Lot of running, not much service. Nearly nicked it for us at the end, and he worked tirelessly. Think he might have benefited from Bennett coming on earlier.

(Agree)

 

Nugent - 5/4 As a striker, your job is to score goals. *SHOULD* have scored at the death, and lost a point by not doing getting his shot on target. Not sure where he goes from here. His confidence must be shot. Other than that, though, he put in a typically Nugent performance, harrying the defense without offering a great deal.

(Disagree, 4 is fair for someone who came on late and still looked knackered and didn't have the legs to pass, harry or shoot properly. He is done, and he knows it.)

Bennett - 7 Best of our subs last night. Full of endeavour. Yes, he lacks real 'quality' at this level, but he put Ipswich on the back foot by simply running at them. Won free kicks, and provided some much needed impetus, particularly in the last 10 .

(Agreed)

Bryson - 6. Calm, composed, and creative. Not quite the impact of Bennett, but the game changed. The bhoy (pun intended) has got a bit of his old spark back in recent weeks.

(Agreed)

MOTM... On ratings it would be Bennett, but that's silly, I'd say Waghorn for not giving up on the thankless task of dealing with long balls and no support.

[Day]

7 minutes ago, England Ram said:

Johnson - Contraversial 7/4. He started poorly, I'll say that, but after the first 10-20 minutes I thought he settled into his 'role' fairly well. He's not got the passing of Huddlestone, so we can't expect that of him, but he broke up the play well and had his best game since September for my money.

(COMPLETELY DISAGREE!!) My rating is a 4 along with King. His inability to control and pass a ball cost us much more than just his role. As a team we were playing with 10 men (or even 9 if you include King) most of the time. The back 4 couldn't break the press because he couldn't control the ball quick enough or pass it accurately enough. It was very obvious early in the game we had to bypass him and the team did, went long most of the time and thus didn't play as we should. Yes, he put himself about a bit, but was often late and out of position as a defensive mid. Along with his passing etc his and Kings performance cost us the most.

Johnson finished the first half with a 81% pass accuracy, King 96%, they were the 2 most accurate passers of the ball on the pitch.

Second half they dropped off slightly but still, I’m not sure your complaint on accuracy is a valid one, a 4 is incredibly harsh.

[SaintRam]

Ipswich are bottom because they are incapable of playing away from home. Their away form is as follows:

L
L
L
L
D (Birmingham)
W (Swansea)
L
L
D (Reading)
L
L
L
L
L
L
L
 

At home, they're not as bad. They've drawn more than they've lost. I'd argue the reason that they've struggled turning draws into wins is due to their lack of bite upfront. At home, they've taken points off (of the top 15 - or 10 points away from us):

Blackburn
Villa
Norwich
Brentford
Sheff Utd
Derby

They won none of those games. The games they've won at home were against (current) bottom 6 teams.

 

People who look at the table and deduce that, if we're are 7th and they're bottom we must be THIS much better than them just simply haven't been paying attention to the Championship. The difference in quality between 1st and last, even when last place is adrift, simply isn't that much.
Ipswich are two above average players away from being a mid-table side. You couldn't say that about any of the teams last-place in any other league.

[Harrowram]

4 minutes ago, SaintRam said:

Ipswich are bottom because they are incapable of playing away from home. Their away form is as follows:

L
L
L
L
D (Birmingham)
W (Swansea)
L
L
D (Reading)
L
L
L
L
L
L
L
 

At home, they're not as bad. They've drawn more than they've lost. I'd argue the reason that they've struggled turning draws into wins is due to their lack of bite upfront. At home, they've taken points off (of the top 15 - or 10 points away from us):

Blackburn
Villa
Norwich
Brentford
Sheff Utd
Derby

They won none of those games. The games they've won at home were against (current) bottom 6 teams.

 

People who look at the table and deduce that, if we're are 7th and they're bottom we must be THIS much better than them just simply haven't been paying attention to the Championship. The difference in quality between 1st and last, even when last place is adrift, simply isn't that much.
Ipswich are two above average players away from being a mid-table side. You couldn't say that about any of the teams last-place in any other league.

Ipswich are bottom. They are having a dreadful season. Derby have ambition to be promoted. This should have been a 3 point banker. No doubt about it. In the end we were hanging on having been outplayed.

[Day]

Just now, Harrowram said:

In the end we were hanging on having been outplayed.

Not sure what ending you saw, but the one I watched we actually started playing and had a few decent chances to go on and win the game, deserved? Possibly not, but then neither would a Ipswich win have been.

We was well below par but outplayed? Not having that, they had spells in the game but as SaintRam said they lacked anything up top. Wasn’t a great game of football at all.

[Alph]

I don't think it really matters that it was Ipswich or anyone else.

The concern is the game management and pattern of play we are showing over a run of games now. 

It's not that Ipswich was poor. It's that it was a performance like so many in the recent couple of months. 

[SaintRam]

Just now, Alpha said:

I don't think it really matters that it was Ipswich or anyone else.

The concern is the game management and pattern of play we are showing over a run of games now. 

It's not that Ipswich was poor. It's that it was a performance like so many in the recent couple of months. 

I will agree we've had a lot of performances this season where pairs of players, who the week before were walking through the opposition together, suddenly look like they've never met each other.

Really weird negative spikes in cohesion.

[Carl Sagan]

6 hours ago, angieram said:

I was at the match last night (still in Ipswich) and just catching up with this thread. My first observation is that there are about 9 different 'scapegoats' mentioned. We all agree we were slightly off it, but everyone has a different reason why. 

That says more about how we were set up and why that didn't work than it does about individuals.

What a great start and did we score too early? There's never a bad time to score in my opinion but it did spur Ipswich on in front of a pretty poor crowd who weren't expecting much. However, our inability to counter-attack with more ruthlessness helped to get them onside.

Despite what people say , I thought our movement off the ball was good last night and we did find ourselves in some promising situations around the box but wasted them either looking for a better angle to shoot from or not shooting at all! At that stage I thought a second goal would come. The pitch wasn't really suited to a slick passing game hence the misplaced passes; couple this with some pernickity refereeing leading to a lot of soft free kicks against and our intent seemed to diminish.

I thought Johnson played well first half BTW. King showed one or two nice touches but not really up to the pace of the game - he's badly in need of match time which is hard to come by at this stage of the season.  Wilson needs to be playing in the Prem as he's just a target for physical attention, as was Lawrence - both carrying knocks from relatively early on. 

Second half I think that King and Johnson's lack of game time started to show and our stupid free kick (when wIll we start managing those better?) for an equaliser that gave them and the crowd the confidence they needed to be more creative. How we didn't concede again during that time I am not sure and I have to mention the superb clearance off the line from Holmes, who otherwise had a patchy game.

At this stage things needed changing badly and I thought Frank was a little slow to react. 

It wasn’t until all three substitutes were on the pitch that we started to gain back some control and this was mainly due to Bryson replacing King, who did little second half other than cause the poor play that led to their goal. 

I have read a lot of negative comments about Nuge's finishing and don't disagree, but it was his presence that enabled us to win some aerial duals and help get that ball into the box and bring Waghorn back into play, helping to create those late chances so it wasn't all a negative for me.

We seemed to have several of those chances in a hectic last ten minutes but not the right bounce or first time shot to get the winner. It would have been hard luck on Ipswich if we had. They fought really strongly throughout whereas we seemed to be playing with one eye on Saturday ( the players as well as the manager.) 

A disappointing but not devestating result, given how other games finished last night. We'll see whether the sacrifice was worth it on Saturday.

Thanks. I couldn't face the match thread so have only looked at the most recent pages. Good to see a sensible analysis of how things panned out.

When I got home last night I could have thrown something at the TV watching the highlights, because we again gave a goal away seconds after taking a stupid freekick in the opposition half. I probably shouldn't have posted, but making bad decisions and not learning from them drives me mad. Stealing a quote from the "Classic movie scenes" thread in The Pub I'll say:

The first rule when taking a freekick in your opponent's half is you do not put your defence under immediate pressure.

The second rule when taking a freekick in your opponent's half is you do not put your defense under immediate pressure.

I was very surprised to see two midfielders with very little match fitness picked together. It could be argued, "How do they get match fitness except from playing?", but it seems perverse to start both together in a vital league match when that's not enforced. As you say, we'll see if the sacrifice was worth it. If we reach a Wembley FA Cup semifinal, is this season a success? I think it has to be given the last time we reached an FA Cup semi we were league champions.

[North East Ram]

44 minutes ago, David said:

Not sure what ending you saw, but the one I watched we actually started playing and had a few decent chances to go on and win the game, deserved? Possibly not, but then neither would a Ipswich win have been.

We was well below par but outplayed? Not having that, they had spells in the game but as SaintRam said they lacked anything up top. Wasn’t a great game of football at all.

I thought we were second best between the 3rd and 85th minute.

Although we did have the best chances between the 85th and 95th minute, unfortunately we didn’t have the skill to bang one in from 6 yards.

If they’d been better up front then our late chances would’ve been academic.

It’s not the end of the world but the carelessness on the ball, anonymity in midfield and lack of ruthlessness up front was symptomatic of far too many away games this season. 

Defence, Waghorn and Lawrence (considering he was paggered from the 2nd minute) played ok.

Looking forward to a refresh on Saturday.

[Day]

11 minutes ago, Tim Bucktoo said:

I thought we were second best between the 3rd and 85th minute.

Although we did have the best chances between the 85th and 95th minute, unfortunately we didn’t have the skill to bang one in from 6 yards.

If they’d been better up front then our late chances would’ve been academic.

It’s not the end of the world but the carelessness on the ball, anonymity in midfield and lack of ruthlessness up front was symptomatic of far too many away games this season. 

Defence, Waghorn and Lawrence (considering he was paggered from the 2nd minute) played ok.

Looking forward to a refresh on Saturday.

Do you feel like we was lucky to walk away with a point?

Elland Road we were outplayed, well and truly, I don’t think anyone would argue we deserved anything from the game.

Last night, I thought a point was fair, I was never overly concerned by them, just frustrated by Lawrence, Wilson and Holmes who all decided to take the night off. Ipswich worked hard enough but lacked any real quality in the final third to give us problems. I honestly don’t feel like we got away with one there though, robbed a point. 

Turned up, did enough for the appearance bonus and got back on the bus home with our point, we know we can play much better than that.

Having a quick look through their fans reactions to the full time tweets, hard earned point seemed to be the mood and positive reactions to their performance which says a lot about how bad they’ve been this season. I came across the odd one that thought they should have won but overall they were happy with the point.