Ipswich game

Following that dreadful display I will be amazed if either Finney or Lowery are in the team. Bad enough that neither managed a single pass or any attempt to support Porter. But with two novice fullbacks to be left totally exposed without support from two experienced midfielders surely has to go down as a first. Plus the fact that one of those midfielders was our Captain. Sorry, there can be no excuse for that.

Late on in the game Evans made an appearance and within 5 minutes he had supported and given Porter the opportunity to score. Something that Finney and Lowery had failed to do for three games.

At the end of the first half Peter Morse commented on how poor our display had been. He ended up by saying that DA would be raging and so angry. That their would be harsh words spoken. Well I do hope that he raged at the person who was responsible. And that person was himself. It had been so obvious that our midfield was so weak for the last 3 games so how come it came as a surprise to him?

Hopefully tomorrow we will have Jones and Pickering available. Replacements for me would be Murphy and Walker. On the bench I would have Evans and Finney as cover for midfield.

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Originally Posted by lukcour

Following that dreadful display I will be amazed if either Finney or Lowery are in the team. Bad enough that neither managed a single pass or any attempt to support Porter. But with two novice fullbacks to be left totally exposed without support from two experienced midfielders surely has to go down as a first. Plus the fact that one of those midfielders was our Captain. Sorry, there can be no excuse for that.

Late on in the game Evans made an appearance and within 5 minutes he had supported and given Porter the opportunity to score. Something that Finney and Lowery had failed to do for three games.

At the end of the first half Peter Morse commented on how poor our display had been. He ended up by saying that DA would be raging and so angry. That their would be harsh words spoken. Well I do hope that he raged at the person who was responsible. And that person was himself. It had been so obvious that our midfield was so weak for the last 3 games so how come it came as a surprise to him?

Hopefully tomorrow we will have Jones and Pickering available. Replacements for me would be Murphy and Walker. On the bench I would have Evans and Finney as cover for midfield.

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Considering we are playing a side who are the exact opposite of Gillingham, I fully expect Lowery to be at least in the squad if not the starting line up. I would like to see more of Evans who looked impressive for the 15 minutes or so he was on. Jones, I am sure will play tomorrow and if Pickering is fit, so will he. If not, I expect to see Rio lining up at left back and if that is the case we must be prepared to accept he is on a steep learning curve and we have to allow him that space to learn. It is what we do!. All the talk of a play off push is pretty unrealistic as shown on Tuesday. We should aim to finish as high as we can but I can't see that being any higher than 10th. First target is 50/52 points. And once we have them we can breathe a little easier.

From 10 games unbeaten to only 1 win in 6 in the space of 1 game! Shows the inadequacy of statistics! The point is that performances have struggled recently and that unbeaten games figure hid a downturn in form. I'm not suggesting that we are in a state of collapse but we're back in one of our old traditional midwinter slumps. As pitches cut up more and the ball becomes a little more unpredictable, not to mention having 7 players injured, it is not a surprise. In addition we have completed more games than most in the division. Despite February looking tough, our fixtures thin out compared to those of many teams around us and we will be back in form by then.
As for tomorrow, Lambert is a 'plan A' man, as demonstrated at Villa when he was unable to change the team's insipid performances, and so I don't expect him to adopt a high press + packed midfield. This will give the Alex a lot more room and will suit Wintle and Lowery. This will also take the pressure off Beckles's distribution. However, despite DA's assurance of continued confidence, I think damage has been done and so I'm expecting a 1-1 draw.

Whilst our performances have been, shall we say, mixed of late the encouraging thing is that we have been drawing those matches when in past years we would not have done. We can all remember matches where the last 10 to 15 minutes were like the Siege of the Alamo with the inevitable concession and everyone trooping home in the cold and wet feeling as miserable as the weather. That’s not just the recent past either, we were the same under Dario.

Gazan is right, heavy bumpy pitches and wet and windy weather does not suit us or other sides that like to use the grass rather than the air. I’m not despondent; we are doing better than I expected, playing better and, I think, raising a few eyebrows amongst our rivals and forcing them to change their tactics and approach. I expect us to finish safely mid table and, sadly, anticipate a few departures in the summer. If you had asked me pre-season whether we or the Vale would be challenging for the play offs in our respective divisions I wouldn’t have said us. We aren’t perfect by any means, but we are good to watch and the manager knows where we need to improve.

Good to see Pixie back in what looks a more solid starting line up with Murphy and Walker for Lowery and Dale. Strong bench too. 1-1.

They do say that playing against ten men is not always advantageous and I believe that is probably true when a player is red-carded in the 80th minute. However in those remaining 10 minutes plus an added 5 we managed to have the ball in their box on one occasion only. I doubt whether that figure would improve very much if we extended the area to 25 yards. Was this because Ipswich were cleverly holding the ball? No, for the majority of the last fif**** minutes, the Alex had possession of the ball. Most of that time the ball was somewhere just in front or behind the half-way line. So, in other words we put Ipswich under no pressure at all! Several players obviously are unable to change pace and do things differently. It is this ,almost robotic, predictability that is letting us down now. We had two wingers on at all times but hardly used them going forward in that last section of the game. Admittedly we did see the 'old' Dale in that period. We had 2 Centre-Forwards for all of 3 minutes and the ball lumped (aimlessly) forward ONCE during that time. Sometimes, I feel like giving up! (Although the outcome and manner of the game was just as I had predicted!)

However, rationally I totally agree with AA about expectations being a little higher. We had a very good first half of the season and just hope that we recover some confidence to start dazzling again in the second half.