More dropped points at home, but these were points dropped which carried some extra significance. Having traditionally experienced problems with teams coming to Portman Road and attempting to stop Ipswich playing, this time a worrying new trend may have begun as a team came to Ipswich with the intention of playing football. And caused us problems.
In a novel move, the team were almost unchanged from the side which lost at Charlton. As was probably to be expected for a home game anyway, Pablo Counago was back in the starting line-up, with Tommy Miller being the man to drop out, as was also to be expected.
Whilst Town started and finished the game strongly, there were marked similarities with the opening day defeat by Preston in the way Swansea approached the task of preventing Ipswich from playing. A huge amount of hard work and discipline went into closing down the Ipswich players in posession, preventing them from getting any kind of passing rhythm to their play, often with two or three players taking on the player with the ball.
It proved to be the catalyst to an impressive passing performance from Swansea. Having nullified Ipswichs strength in posession, they effectively reversed the potential impact of Ivan Campo on the game. Rather than being at the centre of all that Ipswich did, prompting his team and being the centre point of their play, he was reduced to something of a bystander for large periods of the game whilst Swansea held posession themselves. Under these circumstances, Campos lack of energy and mobility around the pitch becomes an advantage to the opposition, allowing them to outnumber and win the central midfield battle.
The midfield generally only improved when Tommy Miller and Owen Garvan were brought into the centre of the field. Garvans vision and creativity, combined with Millers sharp, quick passing and ability to get up and down the pitch, helped turn the midfield in Towns favour, albeit late in the game. Alongside them, Alan Quinn and David Norris both produced industrious performances. Quinn looks far more like the player who started his Town career, quick and energetic, with an eye for the opportunity. In the first half, in particular, he was probably the pick of the Town midfield. Norris, having taken time to get up to fitness in an Ipswich shirt, is now starting to hit a good level of consistency. He is fast becoming a first choice pick in midfield, something which Quinn can probably also lay claim to currently.
Jon Walters toiled somewhat in the right-midfield position from which his form appears to fluctuate from game to game. It seems that some teams are becoming more effective than others in combating his impact. That said, his move to centre forward saw the team gain greater advantage from the success he had been having in the air and his performance peaked when playing up front. Pablo drifted in and out of the game, as is sometimes the case, but his quality on the ball can never be in doubt. It was something of a role reversal for Pablo in that he perhaps didnt have the impact he might in other games, yet he found the goals that might otherwise be lacking in other games.
Jon Stead continues to link well with Pablo, but both players inevitably struggled with the amount of posession they received from an at times overrun midfield. After a long run of starts, it would perhaps be unsurprising if Stead is rested for Tuesdays game at Forest, not that his performances necessarily deserve it.
Kevin Lisbie put in a relatively bright performance as a substitute, but the fact remains that he looks like he needs the right sort of match situation to bring out his best. Away at Nottingham Forest, against opposition who will likely push forward looking for an elusive win, could be just such a situation.
Defensively, it was another poor day at the office for Town, quite possibly the worst of the season so far. At left back, David Wright performed well enough, although he is increasingly stymied by a lack of confidence in his left foot when coming forward. With Ben Thatcher hardly reknowned for his attacking prowess, it may be that this is still an area where Town are not quite where they need to be. Moritz Volz was comfortably the pick of the bunch amongst the defence, his quality on the ball being backed up by some energetic tackling and bursts upfield. Richard Naylor struggled with his distribution, whilst Gareth McAuley continues to look like a good defender struggling to settle fully in a defence which, in itself, is not very settled.
Collectively, it was worrying to see just how loose the marking was, not just when the ball arrived in the box, but for much of the duration of the Swansea attacks. Both goals can be attributable to exactly that failing. It is not an individual fault, but something which all appear to be culpable of. When compared to the manner in which the Swansea players doubled-up on the man in posession and got tight in their marking elsewhere, the difference was marked. It would have been easy to mistake Towns marking system for a zonal system, were it not for the simple fact that they struggle enough, without having a new system imposed upon them.
Richard Wright will have found it another game to forget. One in which he had no key saves to make, short of two goals which he probably couldnt do all that much about, but managed to make everything he did appear nervous and uncomfortable. For a player with such good distribution, it was surprising just how many times clearances were sliced out of play, or in some cases straight through the middle to the feet of the opposition. With goalkeepers, sometimes being taken out of the limelight is the only way to recover that confidence and it seems inevitable that Shane Supple will finally get the chance he has been waiting for on Tuesday.
A game in which Town actually played some good football in patches, but the manner in which they were outplayed for large periods of the game will be the aspect that remains longest in the memory. The defensive concerns that have existed previously show no signs of lapsing, some two months into the season.
Tuesdays game at Nottingham Forest, bottom of the league Nottingham Forest, now seems to represent a pivotal moment in the season. A defeat would do enormous damage to a team whos confidence is already beginning to look fragile. Despite calls for the manager to remain consistent in his team selections, on this occasion its doubtless that anyone would object to a few key changes.
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