Well I haven’t posted lately & interestingly Town play against Bristol City away today (my last mentioned the next game was vs Bristol City at home). Presently we are playing football in the depths of winter with snow all around…Amazingly most Premiership & Championship games are still going ahead.
The home game against Bristol City ended in a slightly disappointing 1-1 draw. It was disappointing as Town cannot seem to play well at home despite having several good away performances and results under new manager Mick McCarthy. Still it was a point and kept Town out of the bottom 3 relegation places.
Since that game Town still cannot get any improvement in their home form and the last home match was a similarly disappointing 1-1 draw with Barnsley who are another club struggling to fight relegation. A few weeks earlier Town had a good away performance at table toppers Cardiff with a well deserved 1-1 draw and Town had chances to win. Town also lost away to Aston Villa (2-1) in the cup but had chances against the struggling Premiership side and was overall a good performance by Town.
Meantime there have been the usual player changes. On loan DJ Campbell left and most recently Jason Scotland has left as Mick McCarthy looks for younger players to play for the team. Henderson has left also leaving Scott Loach & Adam LeeBarrett as goalkeepers. Out went Nigel Reo-Coker and new players in include strikers Mclean & McGoldrick and Frank Nouble. It is hard to keep up with so many changes and cannot help the team get established. However it has to be done as the manager tries to build a team of his choice for the future. The Championship table is very congested:
Position Team Played Goal Diff Points
1 Cardiff 28 20 60
2 Leicester 28 26 50
3 Hull 28 8 50
4 Crystal Palace 28 15 48
5 Middlesbrough 28 8 47
6 Watford 27 16 46
7 Brighton 28 10 42
8 Burnley 28 3 42
9 Millwall 28 2 41
10 Nottm Forest 28 2 41
11 Leeds United 28 -5 41
12 Charlton 28 0 39
13 Derby 28 1 38
14 Blackburn 28 1 37
15 Blackpool 28 3 34
16 Bolton 28 -1 34
17 Wolves 28 -6 33
18 Huddersfield 28 -16 33
19 Ipswich 28 -21 32
20 Birmingham 28 -9 31
21 Sheff Wed 28 -12 29
22 Peterborough 28 -13 26
23 Barnsley 28 -15 25
24 Bristol City 27 -17 22
Town are just 10 points off the bottom place (Bristol City) but only 10 points away from the 8th placed team (Burnley).
The managerial football madness continues. Bristol City sacked Derek McInnes & now have Sean O’Driscoll in charge. Southampton sacked Nigel Adkins recently who had done so well for them to get them to the top. It seems there is little rhyme or reason for sacking and appointing football managers. In Town’s case though we needed to change Paul Jewell who could not handle the hard times even with the full club/owner support and we are in better shape with Mick McCarthy a manager who can handle both good & bad times positively.
Hopefully I shall be listening to the game on BBC Radio Suffolk and currently I’m listening to Mark Murphy on “Life’s a Pitch” pre game ITFC fanzine radio show (link to Facebook page:http://www.facebook.com/bbclifesapitch).
Anyway I hope Town continue their good away performances today and get a good result as Town still need points to climb the table & keep away from the bottom relegation places. GO TOWN..COYB..