Sloppy defending, below par performances, and a dodgy keeper… Deja vu anyone?
Well there were always gonna be tough times ahead, surely no-one expected us to win every game from here on in? Hell I'd count promotion as a bonus this season and if Roy Keane gets us into the play off places it will be some achievement.
Remember he has had to build a team from scratch in a couple of days and we should be thankful for how effective that team has been so far. We were in absolute free-fall, heading for League 1 without a trace, and we've gone from that to being disappointed at Ipswich hampering our promotion bid. Lets not get ahead of ourselves.
It's not because we lost that I'm disappointed and angry it's because of how we lost. I am absolutely sick to death of stupid defensive blunders costing us dearly and it just seems to keep following us around. Yes the defence hasn't played together long but we coped easily enough at Leeds and although we only drew even Leicester did not pose us too many problems at the back.
Again I have to say it's a problem of attitude, and it's not just in defence, the entire team seemed to go into the game expecting to win as opposed to forcing the result. There is no room in any team for complacency and it is the managers responsibility to make sure that is the case.
When you're gifted a 1-0 lead away from home you would expect a team with as much experience as ours to close Ipswich out of the game, to get the ball down and make them chase it. Instead we continue with slack passing and some hopeless tackling and gift them a free-kick. Even so, I've seen the free-kick and a goal keeper with Premiership ambitions has to be coping with that kind of effort, while far from easy it certainly should never have beaten Alnwick.
I'm wondering to what extent Alnwick is to blame for the defensive blunders that have marred our season. Is he organising the backline well enough? Do they have confidence in his abilities? This is important. Until these issues are resolved then dodgy keeping and slack defending will continue to cost us games we should be winning.
I also felt that Roy Keane showed his first element of managerial naivety in the game. The formation change at half time was ridiculous, the lads have little to no experience of playing 4-5-1 in a competitive match and it gave Ipswich the initiative to go at us. Keane needs to remember that he does not have a team of world class players who can mould seamlessly from one tactical shift to another. But he is still learning his trade, he has already proved he has an eye for a good player and some things you can only learn by getting them wrong.
Yet how he can justify not starting Hysen again is beyond me. Unless Ross Wallace is coming up with some truly outstanding stuff on the training ground there can be no reason for it. Even dropping Liam Miller may have been an idea as he seems to be strangely invisible for large periods of games.
But what now? I'd certainly double our defence and goalkeepers shifts on the training ground, but do we shake up the side or persevere? The engine on this magic carpet needs some fine tuning before it can really take off and I for one firmly believe that Keane is the man to do it.
FTM
Regards
Michael
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