ITFC 1 LUFC 2

Home loss today against Leeds United. I could only listen to live commentary on BBC Radio Suffolk when ITFC did well for the first 30 minutes and took the lead with a good goal from McGoldrick. Leeds equalised with a slightly lucky rebound getting to one of their players who finished well. Leeds then played better than Town and when Leeds took the lead with their second goal there was little response from Town. In the end Town applied pressure with a succession of corners but in reality never seriously threatened getting an equaliser. Very disappointing….

There is talk about Town’s problems now as their good early game promise seems to be fading fast. To me I have to ask questions of Daryl Murphy and Luke Higham. I do not think either have given enough end product to Town and for some while now. No doubt both are good footballers but Town need strikers to make and take chances and midfielders who can make things happen and these two have not done enough in my opinion in those key areas. Last season when Mick came to Town’s rescue it was the defence that needed attention and that was improved but now we need goals and strikers who will get goals and hopefully midfielders and others who can chip in with the odd goal or two every so often. Bring on Antony Wordsworth and give Frank Nouble a proper chance!

Town have had tough games to start but there are only 2 or 3 teams that will be less hard (slightly easier) to play than others in what is a highly competitive Championship league. Town themselves are becoming a soft touch as they flatter to deceive by playing well for periods but then playing poorly in spells. This will not work for success in the Championship and after the last few seasons Town have had, everyone at the club should know that. Consistent hard work has to be standard with the odd glimpses of real quality for success in the Championship. Once again Town need to wake up quickly and “smell the coffee” now and recover by putting the hard yards in otherwise we are destined for another poor season!

COME ON YOU BLUES!

Next game is away at Birmingham next Saturday…go for it Town!
(for all Town’s fixtures see post on new season’s fixtures 2013/14)

We are now 3 games through the new 2013/14 football season for ITFC and an encouraging start in the SkyBet Championship..played x2 and lost x1 (2-1 Away vs Reading) and won x1 (3-0 H vs Millwall). Lost disappointingly to Stevenage in the Capitol Cup but manager Mick tried some team changes which didn’t work for that game but showed the new players they will need to do better to get a place in the regular first team!

The 3-0 home win vs Millwall was pleasing with Skuse and Higham impressing the manager (Mick McCarthy!) and fans both. Scorers were Cresswell (via an own goal..), Smith and Anderson. Millwall didn’t play well and are in some disarray after their manager of last season Kenny Jackett left and new manager Steve Lomas finding it hard to get support from all Millwall fans. Town did well away at Reading with Jay Tabb scoring against his former club. That was always a tough fixture away but after these 2 opening games the Town team and us fans can feel optimistic about the games ahead. We all need to take games one at a time and not to get complacent or over confident and support one another!

Hopefully I will soon post a fixture list here.
The next game is on Sat 17 Aug away vs QPR-another tough away game…COYB!! Go Town!

The Championship for 2013/14 season starts tomorrow! The summer holidays for ITFC are over. I hope the whole team and management and staff have had a decent break and that pre season preparations have gone well and that everyone is looking forward for a good season ahead for Town.

As ever there have been several player changes.Out go JET/Chopra/Martin/Drury that I know of and there are probably a few more gone I don’t know about! Jay Tabb and Daryl Murphy signing new contracts and Christoph Berra and Cole Skuse and Ryan Tunnicliffe and Dean Gerken coming in. There are others but I can’t remember them off hand! The only disappointment I had was the failure to sign Richard Stearman. Anyway Mick Macarthy has a good squad (albeit with some injury problems already!).

The first game of the season tomorrow is tough- away at Reading…..looking forward to it!

COME ON YOU BLUES COYB…… GO TOWN

Burnley 2 ITFC 0

Last Saturday saw the final games in the NPower Championship and Town lost away to Burnley.
This was not a bad result by any means as manager MacCarthy had changed the side considerably as for the first time since starting he had a chance to use other players as we were safe from relegation.

Tyrone Mings played and played well. Chambers didn’t play but Kisnorbo did and he had a reasonable game.
Marriott was put on as substitute and showed some good ability with the ball.

Town started well but somewhat fizzled out later. The first Burnley goal was a screamer & more or less unstoppable. It was a shame the second was due to poor defending late on in the game. Anyway it was a shame to lose but Mick & the supporters had a chance to look at other players and they did alright. There is every reason to think the future for next season is good for Town. Already a few players are leaving (shame to see goalie Aaron Lee Barrett going as he had done well for Town imho). Hopefully we can secure McGoldrick and Steadman.

What a final championship Saturday! Apart from Burnley vs Town, the other games had promotion/playoff/relegation issues riding on them. In short congratulations to Hull who get second & promotion. However commiserations to Peterborough and Wolves who are relegated along with Bristol City. Barnsley did well to avoid the drop and well played ex Ipswich player Jason Scotland who helped them considerably.

Well the season is over-time to have a break before thinking of a better season for ITFC to come!

COYB!!!!!!!

ITFC 3 Birmingham 1

Well done ITFC!
A great win for another crucial 3 points.
Town now have 60 points & have moved into 11th position and are finally safe from any relegation.

The game before was Sheffield Wednesday 1 ITFC 1 . Again a decent result for Town. Now there is one remaining last game to play away at Burnley. This can be slightly less stressful as relegation does not hang on it and Town will be playing to end the season on a high with a good performance and result.

I say again well done ITFC team, manager, support staff and supporters! What a season it has been. Started with a win and lots of promise of play off positions and promotion. Then at the end of November Town had hit rock bottom of the table & a change of managers. Jewell went & Mick MacCarthy came in…SUPER MICK!!

Well done to Mick for getting the team to get good results and climb up the table. A great achievement-thanks Mick! In fact Mick was as usual down to earth yet humorous in his post match analysis after the win against Birmingham. He said had he known 60 points would be needed to guarantee safety he probably wouldn’t have taken the job! In ‘normal’ years 50 points would have been enough but not this year with the teams up & down form through the season.

Wolves have slipped into the bottom 3 and now must rely on winning their last game and having other results in their favour to avoid successive relegation. Didn’t Mick MacCarthy come from Wolves?!! They should be kicking themselves for sacking Mick (& Terry Connor is at Town-well done Terry & thanks to you also!). Peterborough won and appear to be performing the great escape from relegation. So only Bristol City are confirmed to go down and the other team fighting hard to avoid the drop are Barnsley who won against promotion chasing Hull (Hull 2 Barnsley 0). This makes for an exciting but stressful end of the season for teams at the bottom. Thankfully now that is not ITFC.

So what can I say about the 3-1 win over Birmingham. I listened to live commentary on Radio Suffolk as usual and Town played well with 3 excellent goals (from Murphy, Edwards and Chambers). That is a rarity this season (3 good goals in one match for Town). Richard Stearman was out with a hamstring injury but his stand in Elliot Hewitt played well by all accounts and apart from conceding a late goal the Town defended well again. I have praised the back four of Town in my previous posts & they have done really well since Mick took over. All in all a great way to end the season with a fine home win and all that remains to say for this post is my usual…COYB….

COYB!!!!!

Home defeat today for Town and my first game this season at Portman Road! Oh dear.
(I got a ticket from Karl Fuller in the special £10-00 extra ticket for season holders-thanks Karl-see sidebar link to Karl @ the Fuller Flavour).

Me outside Portman Road before ITFC vs Hull 130413

Sadly Town were so very poor in the first half with the notable exception of Loach, Chambers, Stearman and Smith who played well. These Town defenders were solid as rocks but the rest of the team just weren’t up for it!
WHY NOT?!
In effect the team stood off the Hull players and let them play, and they played! Hull attacked with skill and threat and forced several corners thankfully that they generally botched up. The game got a little tense with free kicks going against Town and Town players not fighting to pick up the loose ball or trying to beat a man. It was bad and there was only going to be a good outcome for Hull.

This came in the form of a penalty as N’Daw brought a Hull attacker down in the box and poor Scott Loach saw the penalty go the other way to his dive. So 0-1 down and at some stage Jay Tabb became injured and on came Wordsworth. I was thankful for half-time and yet so bemused why Town hadn’t put more in to the match? The reason Hull dominated that half was because Town let them! Hull are a good team but we conceded a poor penalty from a clumsy challenge from N’Daw and the Town team let them go play far too easily…aaargh! I was very surprised at the poor performance of some the Town players and the lack of team work and effort and was worried for the second half….

However after the break Town came out and played football! Amazing! It was the same side but like a different team. Hyam started to compete (why hadn’t he in the first half?) and Murphy appeared in the game and worked well with Chopra. Twenty minutes of Town pressure then resulted in a Town goal from Antony Wordsworth. That was so much better and at that stage it was clear the next goal would win the game for either side.

The Town’s spell of pressure started to fizzle out and I was hoping they would at least hold on for a draw. Hull brought on Coren (Simpson off) and scored from a corner with ten minutes to go. I didn’t have a great view of that goal as it was at the other end of the ground to me but it didn’t surprise me that Hull should finally manage to score from a corner as Town gave them plenty of practice to do so in the first half.

Town had brought on Frank Nouble (off Chopra) and for a last try brought on JEThomas (off Murphy). It was too little to late and time ran out for Town.

Overall, at least Town showed some fight for twenty minutes in the second half but it is very hard for me to say, but Hull just deserved to win the game as the away team who had in the first half looked more like the home team. In fairness neither keeper had much to do and it wasn’t a good game overall.

Too many players for Town had a poor game (with the exception of the four defenders I’ve mentioned already) and it showed how much Town missed David McGoldrick. As the home team,Town should manage more than a twenty minute spell of pressure in a home game, and should create more than 2 or 3 chances on goal. The next game is another tough game but it is a home one against Crystal Palace.

Second half free kick before equaliser

The team have to play better against Palace next game and maybe Mick will make some changes for that game. We still need points to keep out of the relegation battle and every game till the end of the season is a big game and it is more important to win on Tuesday after today’s defeat.

Come on Town let’s get the right result next game and with the remaining games and finish the season well!

Well last Saturday was another vital win for ITFC to avoid relegation and it was an away win at Derby.

Well played Town! The three points does keep us away from the relegation places but even though Town went up to 14th position we are only six points from the bottom relegation place. The Championship this year is an even more competitive league than usually with many clubs struggling to avoid the relegation places close to the end of the season.

Mick Marthy’s post match comment on the Derby game was great. He talked about hearing police sirens and thinking the Town team would be arrested for stealing a win! Mick is also very grounded and knows how vital the win was. A big part of the was down to Scott Loach who saved a penalty but the whole team can take pride in “winning ugly”! Also what a great last minute goal from Carlos Edwards- a great individual effort but well done Town for a great away win!

The next game is today at home against Hull & I am going…wayhayyyyy!

I will post my match report here after the game. Come on Town let’s have a good home game against Hull (& score some goals past David Stockdale-the Hull keeper who was with ITFC in the early season).

COME ON YOU BLUES…

A great win today for Town at home against Leeds. This was vital as other teams below Town have also won today. So there is still only a 4 point gap between Town (now in 16th place) & the third relegation place (currently Wolves with 45 points). Town have been doing so well to get results and points recently and it has been so important as clubs such as Peterborough and Sheffield Wednesday continue to get results and are fighting hard to get out of the relegation places. It is vital that Town take the confidence they have now into the remaining 7 seven games to finish out of the relegation places at the end of the season.

Again I listened to the match on Radio Suffolk and Town got a big boost when a Leeds player was sent off and Leeds had to play a lot of the second half with 10 men. It is never good to get players sent off in any games but it sure helped Town today as in the first half the full strength Leeds side had several good chances to score but wasted them.

As far as Town players are concerned well done to goalkeeper Scott Loach. The keeper position at Town has been difficult for a season or more and Henderson was recalled & went back to West Ham earlier in the week.
Also Jay Tabb had another good game and JET (Emanuel-Thomas) played well as a substitute and another good game from David McGoldrick.

Also well done to manager Mick McCarthy and assistant Terry Connor. It was a really tough job for any manager to take on inheriting the mess that Paul Jewell had left the club and team in. Mick has held firm to his very sensible and basic ideas and the Town defence has improved considerably along with results. Again Mick is convinced that only after Town get safe can we really start to think about how Town can do better for next season and beyond.

So the next game is on this coming Easter Monday away against Millwall. A win or draw there would be nice….
Then the next three games are:

Sat 6 Apr 2013 – Championship – Derby v Ipswich 15:00

Sat 13 Apr 2013 – Championship – Ipswich v Hull 15:00

Tue 16 Apr 2013 – Championship – Ipswich v Crystal Palace 19:45

There are no easy games in the Championship but finally Town seem to be more concentrated on being hard to beat and to try hard to get a result either a win or draw. Unfortunately in the early part of the season Town were not concentrating on those things and did not get results and have suffered because of this. However Town can take lots of confidence from their change of attitude and change of results and I look forward to them building on that!

COYB!! GO TOWN!!