For over an hour, Ipswich Town built on the confidence given to them by Wednesday nights excellent League Cup quarter final victory over West Brom, and were on course for a second successive win to put the club firmly back on the right path.
Five minutes later, as at Norwich six days previously, the match was lost.
As Brian Murphy and Tommy Smith produced game changing errors, the course of the match, and perhaps that of Roy Keanes future at the club, slipped away from the grasp of the Blues.
Headlines are made on results, and whilst Keane could once again point to many positives, a fifth successive league defeat, the eighth in ten matches, proves impossible to ignore.
After the match, Keanes bewilderment at the circumstances of defeat were evident- “Im sick of saying it, if you give goals like that away, you’re never going to win a game of football. The first two goals we gave away were very hard to take and I could be here until midnight and I probably wouldn’t be able to explain it.”
“No excuses; Its a hard one to take today as I thought we generally did ok. I thought the performance was pretty decent today, the word Im going to use is more frustrating than anything else. ”
After the positivity of the midweek win, Keane opted to retain the 4-4-2 formation once again. In defensive, Troy Brown deservedly kept his place alongside Tommy Smith, whilst Gianni Zuiverloon returned to the side at the expense of Jaime Peters. In midfield, Carlos Edwards and Jack Colback were back in the starting line up, replacing Reggie Lambe and virus-victim David Norris.
Whilst Town created good early opening, with Priskin seeing his effort saved having seized on a back pass, the Blues found themselves relinquishing possession to a Swansea side who controlled large portions of the match.
However, the possession was with little reward, as The Swans struggled to make in-roads into the young Town back line and gradually, Town recovered their ground. By the time half-time arrived, it was Ipswich who had created the better of the first half chances, Scotland seeing his strong run and curling effort tipped around the post, and Troy Brown equally being denied by De Vries as he tipped away the young centre backs header.
Early in the second half, the lively Townsend made his biggest impact, but from an unexpected source, as he headed in an excellent Edwards right-wing cross to put Town in front.
As confidence continued to sweep through the side, the Blues gained a firm foothold in the match.
However, as the game reached its three-quarter mark, two quick goals put Town on the canvas. First, Brian Murphy completely misjudged his punch and was beaten to the ball by Craig Beattie for the softest of headers. Moments later, Tommy Smith inexplicably attempted to dribble across his six-yard box, only to be intercepted by Joe Allen, who smashed home.
As Town pressed for an equaliser that had seemed the least of their expectations earlier in the game, they were denied a clear penalty by referee D’Urso who failed to award a spotkick as Gower checked Edwards to the ground as he was played through on goal.
As the Town players remonstrated with the referee, so Craig Beattie took it upon himself to finished proceedings, with a spectacular curling effort into Murphys top corner to put the game beyond reach.
Keane refused to focus on the penalty decision, instead feeling the blame for defeat laid with his own misfiring side: “Lets not use the penalty decision as an excuse for us losing a football match today. It looks clearly a penalty, but Im not going to use that, I’m running out of excuses.
We’ve been talking about getting ourselves in front and we did, so that suited us, but we didn’t score that second goal.
“Every week we talk about mistakes we make, but weve got to be more clinical in front of goal, you’ve got to be clinical and hit the target. Some of the goalkeepers seem to make good saves against us but sometimes thats just bad finishing”.
As at Norwich, a heavy defeat had left behind positives which are largely ignored in the context of the result.
For the second successive match, Grant Leadbitter produced a fine performance from central midfield, showing that he might just be recovering the form which earned such good reviews a year ago.
Once again up front, Jason Scotland and Tamas Priskin showed indications that their partnership is developing further. Both managed to provide a positive impact on the match, testing the goalkeeper on several occasions, but the fact remains that with only one goal between them in seven games, it is output on the scoresheet that is most required.
Defensively, Town again produced two individual errors to rival those from the Norwich game. It is a particular achilles heel which the manager himself is unable to influence. However, the pairing of two young centre backs comes under scrutiny when Damien Delaney, having returned from suspension, wasn’t even able to find himself a place on the bench.
As Town head north to Preston, a ground on which they have found scant reward in recent years, a result of any sort looks to be of prime importance. Having survived failing to win any of the first fourteen matches last season, Keane finds himself in an even more precarious predicament, and he acknowledged that time may be running out.
“It is unacceptable, I have no problem with that. I’ve tried to be positive before. As much as you can blame individual mistakes, I’m ultimately the manager, I pick the team, Ive brought some of the players in and we cant keep making these excuses and there will come a point where you say “enough’s enough”. 8 defeats out of 10 is unacceptable for a top football club like Ipswich.”
No comments:
Post a Comment