ITFC away at Charlton today Sat 30/11/13

Well, last week Town had a poor result and poor performance losing 2-1 to Leicester at home. Luke Hyam lost his place for a spot on the sub bench so the midfield was Anderson, Tabb & Tunnicliffe. No sign of Skuse? Is he injured? Wordsworth was a sub on the bench but didn’t play. Nouble and Taylor came on as subs for Tabb and Anderson.

The main highlight was a good early goal from David McGoldrick but of course David Nugent was a pain and ended up getting two goals in the second half for Leicester to win. Leicester are a good side and certainly in the second half were better than Town but Town still need to do better and try & fulfill their undoubted potential. It is time the team get together as otherwise it will be a mediocre (or worse) season for Town.

So today, Town need a much better performance away at Charlton.

I expect solid good performances from David McGoldrick and Tommy Smith and it is time the rest of the team up their game and the whole team put in a good team performance and get an away win! COME ON YOU BLUES…

COME ON TOWN… show us what you are made of and start to play to make this great football club a force again!

(EDIT UPDATE:-Last Thursday a new young player Jordan Graham joins on loan from Aston Villa and is on the bench today. Unfortunately, Taylor is injured and not in the squad)

A great and much needed away win for Town today against Blackpool.

WELL DONE TOWN!

Match summary: Blackpool 2 ITFC 3

Well, Town won with a last minute winner at Blackpool to give Town their first away win of the season.
Again Town did it the hard way. First Town went behind with a goal on 23 minutes from Dobbie of Blackpool and Town had a mediocre first half.

There were several changes to Town with Tommy Smith away on World Cup duty with New Zealand & Cresswell suspended following his red card last week giving Mings and Tabb starts.Town also had new signing Stephen Hunt on the bench following his mid-week arrival at ITFC. Manager Mick McCarthy made some positive changes in the second half & took off Higham & Tabb replacing them with Nouble and Taylor. It was Nouble who got the Town equaliser and he played well. Taylor then gave Town a great boost by scoring a good goal and the win was on for Town who had only to see out four minutes of extra time. Of course they didn’t manage that and Blackpool hit what I thought was a certain equaliser as there were just two minutes of time left. Amazingly though Town pressed forward and Hunt made a good shot on goal and from the resulting corner Daryl Murphy scored with just seconds left of the match to complete a great second half turn around and secure Town’s first away win! WELL DONE TEAM….oh what fun it is when Town win away!

This is a great tonic for the team and supporters. It was quite weird as it was almost the opposite of last week when Town were fine in the first half and bad in the second when they were leading and yet today Town were average in the first half when losing but were good in the second half and got the win. This is more like the character the team need and was a definite improvement from last week…..

One final word of good Town news from last week is Ireland’s manager is fixed now and it is NOT Mick MacCarthy, so Mick stays with Town as he said he thought he would and now Town can keep pushing on and up the table with Mick still in charge!

COYB! GO TOWN…..

A draw at home against Barnsley tonight,so a disappointing result for me and most Town supporters. I watched the game live on Sky TV and was quietly confident at halftime with Town leading by 1-0. All Town had to do was put in a similar second half and the game would have been won.

Unfortunately Barnsley had other ideas and all their players did better and were far more determined than Town. Instead of matching them, the Town players decided they would continually boot the ball into touch or play long balls up field to either no Town player or a Town player who could not hold play up and the ball went back to Barnsley and then straight back to around the Town penalty area and put Town under pressure for most of the second half. Barnsley had one chance in the first half and eleven in the second half! Town were poor in the second half and were a little lucky not to lose the game and Jason Scotland had a couple of chances for Barnsley. At one moment Dean Gurken decided to add to Town woes by slipping up on a back pass when under no pressure and slicing the ball out for a corner to Barnsley.

Town barely had any chances in the second half except for a lame penalty claim from Nouble right at the end. In fact Nouble and the Barnsley defender were both shirt tugging and Nouble fell down hoping for a penalty. It wasn’t a clear cut penalty and yet Aaron Cresswell got booked after the game for arguing with the referee that it was a penalty! What a needless and stupid booking!

I am not a fan of our midfield especially Luke Higham. Where were the midfielders in the second half? Always second to the loose ball and unable to get the ball and play. Tabb came on as a sub and had a sniff of a chance when their goalie fumbled a long range shot from Chambers and that was the best Town had all second half. Come on Mick, why not play Antony Wordsworth? At least start him on the subs bench. Taylor looked alright when he came on but Nouble is unlikely to win a game for Town.

The only good feature for me was Tommy Smith was a rock. He got a cut eye early on but played on bandaged up and was his normal solid self.

A poor performance and poor result tonight for the Town team. I really hope Town team learn to be more ruthless and determined soon because they do need to play with those qualities if they want to win games in this league…..October has finished and wasn’t a good month for Town and November hasn’t started with a bang or fireworks….COME ON TOWN the team has to do better this month!

ITFC vs Barnsley Fri 01/11/13

Tonight Town play Barnsley at home.

Brief report on Bolton 1 ITFC 1

First though a brief mention of last Saturday’s game at Bolton which finished as a 1-1 draw. Town played reasonably well and in many ways an away point is good. However an away point is only good if you can win your home games so it is important Town can win tonight against Barnsley.

More on ITFC vs Barnsley

Barnsley are still struggling after their tough season last year but they are no easy push over. They are committed to winning and Town will need to at least match Barnsley for commitment and effort. Town players are skilful enough and as Mick says the team need to be ruthless and to be able to control games as circumstances need, something they have not been good enough at. The very pleasing aspect at Bolton was after going a goal behind they had enough spirit to score a goal to draw. The Town team must play what is in front of them and know when they have to dig in and contain teams and when they have to open up in search of goals and wins. This is matchplay and Town need to improve their match play so they do not let leads go, as at the away game at Derby and certainly at home they need to be proactive and seek a win while also being tight in defence and not making silly errors.

There still remains for me and many other fans the cloud of uncertainty about Mick McCarthy’s future in regard to the Ireland manager’s job. See the latest short video from YouTube with Mick here:

So well done Mick, you have done a great job for the Town and I hope you continue to do so!

COME ON TOWN…beat Barnsley tonight…Town team and fans can do it! COYB….