I decide to sleep on it before commenting on the match, which I had the pleasure (?) of attending in person yesterday.
The first thing to say is that Ipswich are an excellent team. Their Clarke, no. 47, was MOTM for me, he's a Premiership class player and ran their midfield like clockwork. Having said that, our first half set up made them look even better than they were, and for large parts of the 45 minutes it looked like a training match, attack against defence, as they pinned us into our own half.
I understand the 5-3-2 set up is supposed to keep us solid at the back and allow the wing backs to thrust forward down the flanks in support of the attack, but it didn't work out like that. They were fully occupied keeping Ipswich out, and when we regained possession, there was rarely an out ball, because our two forwards were well marked, on top of which Inoussa had a stinker. He was always falling over in possession and looking for the referee's sympathy yesterday, which was rarely forthcoming. He did it even when he burst into the area in the second half and had a chance to get a shot away from twelve yards under pressure, but ended up on his arse.
When one of the three midfielders got the ball, it was the same story, no-one forward to pass to. Franco scored a nice goal, but he lost possession several times in midfield by not moving the ball on quickly enough. At least one of those mistakes cost us a goal. Widell looked totally irrelevant out on the left wing. Whatever his best position is, that isn't it.
When we changed formation in the second half, we looked so much more effective, and for five minutes (!) we were the better team. Even Cullen played well. Personally, I'd have taken Burgess off because his distribution was particularly bad, the Chelsea youngster was playing well and didn't deserve to be hooked. Yet another poor decision from Sheezy.
Eom when he came on was a revelation, and looked like our only player who could stand up to Ipswich and give them problems. Ronald was OK, but Benson was as dire as always. The situation seemed to be crying out to me for Yalcoure to come on, not Benson, because he has the ability to go at teams down the middle and break them down, but again Sheezy disagreed. Idah was an irrelevance. I felt really sorry for Vip, he worked his socks off closing down their keeper and centre backs, a thankless task. When the ball came to his feet, he desperately tried to work angles for shots, but was always closed down effectively.
So where do we go from here? If we revert to a 4-3-3 and try to attack teams, we probably have enough talent to end up in lower mid table, but I understand fans' disappointment when we expected so much more after all the summer recruitment. Sheezy in or out? Sorry, I'm still undecided. Changing managers before half the season is over is never good, but something has to change.
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