Dreary, Dreadful, Dull, Depressing?
Oh aye, that and a whole lot more...

There was very little to like about this day for me.

After 2 consecutive home games that brought one success and one loss, this third home encounter had an air of ‘must win’ about it. Or at least, ‘must not lose’. Having missed both games I was determined to make this one and had to hope we’d got our bad game out of our system on Tuesday night.
       

       
My home game ritual these days involves leaving the house at 10.15am to head to St Pancras to get the train up to Sheffield, the tram over to the ground, and then after the game doing the reverse trip and getting home at gone 9.00pm. An 11 hour round trip of which all but the 2 hours or so in the ground are spent on my own, and that is only assuming my old man or brother can make the game. The prospect of this ahead of me doesn’t really fill me with excitement on a Saturday morning in the way an away day does, or it used to for home games when I lived up north. I have to rely on Wednesday to offer me something to cheer the day up a little.

Having done the journey there I met my old man and we took our seats. I enjoyed the sound of Waterfront playing to welcome the teams onto the pitch but was surprised to see Hinds replacing Purse. Having heard that the last two games had arguably been Purse’s best in a Wednesday shirt this wasn’t a good sign. As the game kicked off we noticed the sheer size of the Ipswich centre halves. Delaney and Macauley are a giant pairing, both at least 6 foot 5 at a guess. The immediate thought was “I hope we don’t just drop the ball down their throats all afternoon”…

We started brightly enough as Varney went close and it was obvious, even at this early stage, that the way to beat this team was to do exactly what Varney had done there – get the ball down and try to get round them. Sadly this was pretty much the last time we actually did that.

Esajas insists on drifting inside all the time and he did so in the lead up to the Ipswich goal, losing the ball and watching helplessly as Leadbetter took it forward and couldn’t believe how much space he had to find Edwards in, steaming down the right hand sideI said as the ball went wide “Don’t give Edwards that much space!” and he proved me right as he approached the area and simply drilled it into Grant’s far right hand corner, Quite where our left sided players were at this stage it wasn’t clear, I think Gray was caught out by the pace of the break and Tommy was backing off but it was criminal and the ex-Owls target punished us, not for the first time in his career.

We know that Irvine’s system so far has been pretty straight forward and for the most part, effective. 2 banks of 4, be hard to break down, let the opposition have possession if they want it and try to nick a goal where we can. The problem with this is that to win games, we absolutely have to score first. We got lucky against Plymouth when they took the lead that they shot themselves in the foot straight away, letting us back into it, but coming from behind is not easy when you set up as deep as we do. Predictably we couldn’t find a way to break down Ipswich, who basically turned into what we’ve been under Irvine and simply kept us at arm’s length.
       

       
The defence were really missing Purse and not necessarily for his abilities on the ball, but simply for his voice. None of Simek, Hinds, Beevers or Spurr are talkers and if there’s one area where you absolutely have to have clear communication between players it is in defence. No-one was taking control of the back line, they weren’t telling each other what to do and as a result they panicked over and over again. Spurr and Beevers made some good tackles as well as shocking clearances that put us under pressure, Hinds has never been a good passer but was putting himself in the way fairly well enough and Simek not only looks like he can’t physically do what he used to, he’s forgotten the basics now as well. All this added to Grant’s insistence on booting the ball straight down the necks of the aforementioned centre halves and we had nothing like a solid back line to build from. I accept that Grant can’t throw the ball out to the full backs every time but he could at least try kicking it at an angle and not just punting it in a straight line. I can’t believe no-one is telling him this in training but it has happened all season.

Having said that about the defence, the midfield were no better. O’Connor was doing his usual basic level tackling but couldn’t get hold of Leadbetter, Potter showed occasional attempts to pass the ball on the ground but wasn’t getting into the game at all and the wingers might as well have been in chuffing Meadowhall for all the effect they had on the game.

Esajas only contribution was a couple of good bits of defending in the first half when he helped Simek out but if I was a full back I would dream of playing a winger like Esajas. No pace, goes the same way with the ball every time and always shoots from daft angles. Mind you I did wonder why Irvine hadn’t swapped them at any point for a few minutes, as at least Tommy was overlapping when he could and maybe Esajas could have done more with that attacking support. Unfortunately the Old Frankie (TM) is a distant memory and he rarely got beyond the midfield to offer a threat going forward.

Up front Varney and Tudgay did as well as you could expect really, winning one header in every 7 attempts, trying to run with the ball when it occasionally came to them on the ground and not benefitting from constant pushing that went unpunished for the entire game.
       

       
And so was the story of the game. Little happened in front goal for us, other than a Gray chance well saved and a Tudgay shot that hit the top of the bar, both in the first half. We created little pressure in the second half despite the introduction of Clarke, who should have been given more game time in this match and it all petered out into a predictable end. Esajas managed to liven things up with a piece of astonishing stupidity as he went down under a challenge on the right wing, where the defender seemed to catch his face with his hand as he tackled the Dutchman. The referee gave nothing but Esajas stayed down, resulting in Ipswich gratefully taking the opportunity to waste time by kicking it out so he could get treatment – except he didn’t need treatment. If you’re injured, get off so we can replace you and get on with the game. If you’re not, get on with the game. Don’t effectively take us down to 10 men and wind the clock down for the opposition in the process by attention seeking. Unbelievable.

I’m surprised Soares didn’t get onto the pitch as we chased the game and frankly if Laws had replaced Esajas with McAllister at 0-1 he’d have been lynched, but Irvine has the luxury of the honeymoon period to play around with these things. What is worrying is that while Plan A has changed under Irvine, we seem to still have no plan B. Our saving grace may be that our new system is probably better suited to away games than home games and we have a few of those coming up to regain some confidence and get back on track.

Part of this involves not playing in front of the Hillsborough crowd. Games like this will always be frustrating and there were plenty of times when shouts of criticism were fully justified, but sometimes we are our own worst enemy. When it is obvious that hoofing the ball forward isn’t working then what I want to see is the defence passing it to each other, waiting for the chance to play it forward and pressing the opposition back. This actually happened in the first half and while I was quietly congratulating them on finally getting the ball down, screams of panic are starting to come from the mouths of the ever-pessimistic North Stand folk that I have the pleasure of sharing my match days with. This, obviously, resulted in Hinds panicking just when the pitch had started to open up in front of him and he launched it towards the box. Guess what happened? We gave the ball away enough times yesterday, the last thing the players need is their own fans getting on their backs when they still have the bloody thing! Potter’s best pass was in the first half as he tried to do the right thing and play it into the channels. Tudgay hadn’t read that so we lost possession but of course Potter got the abuse. This is exactly what we needed to be doing but the players end up playing within themselves and that contributes to the long ball waste that we saw for most of the game here.
       

There are really no positives to offer but there are perhaps some ‘excuses’. For a start, the opposition... The fact they are as far down the league as they are is criminal and if I was an Ipswich fan, looking at the wage budget that Keane presumably has as he brings in various ex-Premier League (well, Sunderland) players I’d expect a damn sight more than what I saw yesterday. They are a team of individual quality with little team cohesion by the looks of it. But they say a bench tells you how strong a team is – they had David Healy, Alan Quinn and Pablo Counago all unused yesterday. Established players at this level, while we introduced another youngster to the first team ‘experience’ in Liam Palmer.

The pitch is an absolute nightmare at the moment and this isn’t helping the midfield get hold of games, although it is the same for both teams and they should be doing better. The referee was shocking and the fact he disallowed a late 2nd for Ipswich for a push was incredible considering how many pushes he’d ignored from their defenders for the entire game.

I’m running out of things to say that aren’t remotely positive now to be honest. Right now it seems relegation is more likely than ever this season and the fixtures hardly get easier in the coming weeks.

My day, and mood, was hardly improved as my train home was cancelled, then the one I ended up on was delayed as some fans got in a fight in the back carriage and then we had to take a long diversion after Leicester. I got home at midnight in the end.

I can think of an awful lot of things I would rather be doing on a Saturday than spending all that time, not to mention the money, in return for the dross that was served up yesterday.

Sort it out Wednesday, before it’s too late.
       

       
Cheers
Baldy (Chris)
Owls Alive