The Promotion Chasing Thread

[Veggie Legs]

Forgot the most important thing from that last post:

 

[Tom_ITFC]

Sounded like he was angry as well last night blaming players so hopefully he's seen the light and makes changes.

 

[HertsWolf]

I can't decide if we are in this thread or not.

 

[Veggie Legs]

You are.

 

[markwwfc1992]

I can understand resting Murphy, we've been relying on him so much recently and he looks like he needs a break. Dropping Sears as well to play two players who aren't match fit is crazy though, Wood and Sears would have been fine.

I'm in the pro 4-3-3 camp too, but really I think the most important thing is to play people in their natural position. I like Smith, but he looks so uncomfortable on his right foot and Parr is a much better full back than Chambers is. It seems so obvious to everyone except Mick unfortunately. The same applies in midfield, if we're playing 4-4-2 then put natural wide players in the wide positions. Anderson isn't great, but at least he knows how to play in that position. And why haven't we seen Stewart or Connolly, at least from the bench when we need to change something?

Mick has a thing about playing players out of position. We signed Stephen Ward as a striker to solve our lack of goals problem. and I think he played him every position except for goalkeeper. He was somehow our permanent left back for 3 and a half years.

 

[MagpieBee]

Sympathise with the other teams losing strikers, if we lose Gray we will really struggle for the run in. Long has looked ok, but can't give enough to the team to help us through difficult games. Took his goals well on Tuesday to be fair to him.

 

[ChelloRam]

I honestly think if we changed our formation to 442, we wouldn't miss Chris Martin or Darren Bent. It just seems that 433 is our formation and simply won't be changed. I don't have any sympathy for us though, Martin has played all games since joining us (apart from when he was suspended) and other clubs get injury's.

 

[Luke_1884]

Seems like Leeds do us a favour every other week.

They're doing more than ourselves to get Derby County promoted at the minute!

 

[Munkiki]

Yeah, just a shame they squandered that 2-0 lead against Watford.

re: losing Grabban. Sure it's a blow but we've still got Jerome (16 goals) and Hooper (9). Just need them to put in much better performances than last night. Think our bigger problem is that we've only got one Tettey. Johnson and Howson appear much more effective when they've got him behind them.

 

[TomPNE94]

Forgot the most important thing from that last post:

Good. I hope he takes more corners from now on.

 

[HertsWolf]

Sympathise with the other teams losing strikers

Yeh. I'm gutted.

 

[Super_horns]

PROVISIONAL(!) dates for the play offs (From Digital Spy)

Championship #1; 1st Leg Fri 8th May 7.45pm, 2nd Leg Fri 15th May 7.45pm
Championship #2; 1st Leg Sat 9th May 12.15pm, 2nd Leg Sat 16th May 12.15pm

 

[TomPNE94]

PROVISIONAL(!) dates for the play offs (From Digital Spy)

Championship #1; 1st Leg Fri 8th May 7.45pm, 2nd Leg Fri 15th May 7.45pm
Championship #2; 1st Leg Sat 9th May 12.15pm, 2nd Leg Sat 16th May 12.15pm

does it say the L1 dates?

 

[Super_horns]

does it say the L1 dates?

Thursday 7th and Sunday 10th or Monday 11th.

 

[Rammy]

Don't want the playoffs again, not interested.

 

[ChelloRam]

Nah, forget the play-offs. May sound daft, but I'd rather we finished outside the play-offs if we don't make the automatic places.

 

[Super_horns]

Nah, forget the play-offs. May sound daft, but I'd rather we finished outside the play-offs if we don't make the automatic places.

Worse thing is paying over £50 to see your team lose at Wembley...least you did turn up though!

 

[Rammy]

Not any loss though. Dominate the fucking game, and lose it to their first shot on target in the 90th minute.

Doubt I'll ever experience anything that bad in football again.

 

[markwwfc1992]

Especially losing to a team that shouldn't even have the players they had after due to FFP regulations. Maybe a fitting punishment would have to deducted them points to take them out the playoffs instead of fining them. I'm sounding like Lancy now...

 

[Rammy]

I miss Lancy.

 

[TomPNE94]

Not any loss though. Dominate the fucking game, and lose it to their first shot on target in the 90th minute.

Doubt I'll ever experience anything that bad in football again.

I know how it feels to lose to a Bobby Zamora goal. We had beaten them 3 times already that season. Fucking West Ham pricks.

Try 9 failures out of 9 in play-offs before you start moaning.

 

[TractorBoys]

Haven't been on the forums much recently... oh what a difference 3-4 weeks can make. Huge game tomorrow, can't see us winning it either, will be so fucked off if we prove to have run out of steam and finish a distant 8th.

 

[MagpieBee]

I know how it feels to lose to a Bobby Zamora goal. We had beaten them 3 times already that season. Fucking West Ham pricks.

Try 9 failures out of 9 in play-offs before you start moaning.

Not quite as bad as your record - but ours is also terrible in Play Offs, no wins to date. Could this be the season?? (Probably not.)

 

[ChelloRam]

Haven't been on the forums much recently... oh what a difference 3-4 weeks can make. Huge game tomorrow, can't see us winning it either, will be so fucked off if we prove to have run out of steam and finish a distant 8th.

Why would you be fucked off though?
Ipswich have spent next to nothing and have a bunch of journeymen players, that McCarthy has put together and are out performing themselves.
At the start of the season, before a ball was kicked, did you honestly believe you would be challenging for a play-off place?

 

[TractorBoys]

Why would you be fucked off though?
Ipswich have spent next to nothing and have a bunch of journeymen players, that McCarthy has put together and are out performing themselves.
At the start of the season, before a ball was kicked, did you honestly believe you would be challenging for a play-off place?

Yes, without a shadow of a doubt. Anything outside the top 6 this season will be considered a failure. The fact people like yourselves suggest we're a journeyman team is because we don't fit the ideal of a squad made up of big money signings (even though we have a handful of players now worth £4m+)... and lets face it, how many seasons have to go by before people realise that money really ISN'T a surefire way to exit this league.

Also, if you're there or there abouts by the 30th game of the season, regardless of what people may say, you ARE in a promotion race by merit.

Based on our manager and the team, providing we play to somewhere near out potential week in week out we shouldn't be outside the top 6 come May.

Confidence is failing but that's more to do with McCarthys current seemingly rigid 4-4-2 (as opposed to playing 4-3-3 where we regularly hit teams for 3 or 4).

We have to capitlize this season or the likes of Mings,McGoldrick and perhaps Bishop will be out the door come summer.

 

[Veggie Legs]

Why would you be fucked off though?
Ipswich have spent next to nothing and have a bunch of journeymen players, that McCarthy has put together and are out performing themselves.
At the start of the season, before a ball was kicked, did you honestly believe you would be challenging for a play-off place?

Yes. We exceeded my expectations for the first half of the season to be in strong contention for automatic promotion, but it's natural to be frustrated that things have been going much worse for the last couple of months.

 

[ChelloRam]

Yes, without a shadow of a doubt. Anything outside the top 6 this season will be considered a failure. The fact people like yourselves suggest we're a journeyman team is because we don't fit the ideal of a squad made up of big money signings (even though we have a handful of players now worth £4m+)...

Just from memory, you have the following players:

Berra, Anderson, Skuse, Hunt x 2, Chaplow, Varney, Sears, Ambrose, Tabb

I would class them all as very much bang average players who have played for various clubs.

Don't get me wrong, you've got some decent players there like Mings, Bru, Bishop, McGoldrick and Murphy but I wouldn't have had your team in the play-off mix at the start of this season.

I don't suggest that you have to spend a lot of money to get promoted, please explain where I have stated that?
My team hasn't spent a lot of money and as far as I'm aware Bournemouth, Watford & Midddlesbrough haven't spent a lot.
Not quite sure what you're getting at with that, to be honest.

 

[ChelloRam]

Yes. We exceeded my expectations for the first half of the season to be in strong contention for automatic promotion, but it's natural to be frustrated that things have been going much worse for the last couple of months.

I agree, frustration that you've been there for so long, but that's different to expecting to be in the top six, at the start of the season.

 

[Veggie Legs]

I agree, frustration that you've been there for so long, but that's different to expecting to be in the top six, at the start of the season.

You seem to have missed the bit where both TB and I said that we did expect to be in the top six.

I agree that Hunt(s), Anderson and Tabb, and some of our loanees, are average players, but which teams in this league have squads full of good players?

 

[markwwfc1992]

A lot of your arguments against Mick McCarthy are the same we had at Wolves. He would always play 4-4-2 at home and 4-5-1 away week in week out for us, and for the most half he was too stubborn to change his tactics even if it was painstakingly obvious that he needed to (main one that comes to mind is being 3-0 down at HT to Blackburn in the game we needed to win to stay up).

Not saying he's a bad manager or anything but sometimes I feel his tactics can really prevent him from being a good Championship manager to one of a Premier League standard. Sadly from his time at Wolves he would always go by his tried and tested methods (He even sign the same players from his old clubs) rather than experimenting and trying something new.