StrangelyBrown

The Christmas period should be telling. Have Ipswich got a good enough squad to cope with a few injuries? Can all 4 of us keep up the same relentless runs through a lot of fixtures? Personally I think at least one team will slip up over the next month or so and I suspect it will be us...

Agree with you completely re natural finishers - if we had a couple of attacking players (as well as AA ) who got 10 or so goals apiece we wouldn't be having this conversation. However, with so few decent chances created it's difficult to know if the players could score goals or not. Sadly from my perspective Cardiff isn't the norm - we seem to have a game like that every once in a while which adds to my frustration even more as it demonstrates we can make a decent number of chances. I wouldn't bother with ings myself as he's made of glass, but I agree with the sentiment that we need someone who's proven.

From my perspective the frustration is that we are dropping points we shouldn't drop simply because we don't turn our dominance into chances. While Russball seems to be working in a lot of ways a small adjustment to being braver in the final third could lead to more chances and more chances and should mean more goals. This has been plain to see for months now and yet we still recycle the ball rather than taking a risk often losing the ball in the process.

4) Russball which seems to mean we don't create enough chances from possession due to recycling the ball in attacking positions rather than taking a risk in the final third.

How are we doing on the Completed Recycling from Attacking Positions stat? I'm sure we're leading the way.

Well done RM - a win by more than a goal, dominant, plenty of good chances and a clean sheet. What's not to like?

Strangely Adams brought in presumably because he offers more physicality and at the same time lightweight Manning preferred to the more physical Bree. I can only assume we're looking to get more crosses into the box today... Lets see if Adams can be arsed to try and win a header or two

I'm not sure why anyone is getting hung up on goals. This game will be won or lost on unexpected passes backwards from attacking positions. #russballforever

I can't quite get my head around russball. Strangely we seem under instruction not to take risks in the final third whilst being told to take risks at the back. The result being that we're susceptible to gifting ridiculous chances to the opposition (albeit fewer recently) whilst frustratingly recycling the ball back from decent positions without taking a gamble on making something from them. It's almost like the belief is that defending is soooo good now that the only way to break a team down is to suck the entire team out of position.

Really we should get all 3 from a game like this with so much possession, but our unbeaten run continues and a point on the road after an international break isn't the end of the world. Hopefully we'll discover how to turn possession into goals at some point soon.

I'm not sure he's top 6. Of the current top 6 you might argue he's better than Cash, but I'm not sure there's a lot in it and even teams further down like Brighton, Newcastle and Chelsea have better players in his position. Fortunately for us there's an abundance of good right backs around.

Should be guaranteed relegation rather than a points deduction - that way it would be a proper deterrent for others doing the same. Unfortunately most likely this will be overturned and the PL will pat themselves on the back on another piece of propaganda successfully landing and the cheating can continue.

I'm big and ugly enough to admit my response was way OTT, but perhaps it's the relentless condescending tone that comes with every bit of trolling you do on here that winds people up (it certainly pushes my buttons)? There are a multitude of stats out there. Some support your view. Some support the contrary. It is a game of opinions so I'll agree to disagree with you, but please stop stating things are "facts" when there is an element subjectivity to them - stats are open to interpretation and can be manipulated to support almost any point of view and there's always a different stat that supports a different POV.

Blatantly obvious? Take your head out of RMs arseshole for a minute... We had 4 less shots than west brom. We had one more on target but their hitting of the cross bar and the Phillips shot that was literally a whisker away weren't "on target". For all our possession we only registered 3 shots on target. What the fuck are you talking about?

I'd agree with you if we turned the recycled ball into opportunities, but so often we lose the ball closer to our goal having recycled it from the edge of the box. If you don't shoot you don't score, if you don't create chances you don't shoot, etc. For some reason we are incredibly cautious in the final third and I don't think it plays to our strengths. But each to their own.

Sulemana looks like he's been told to play a specific way that doesn't play to his strengths. He needs to be let off the leash a bit and the he'd be a much more dangerous player. Too many times he recycles the ball when he should attack his man, but it looks like this goes against his natural instincts to me.

Good that we got the win today and a great buzz going home tonight, but I can't help that think we make life a bit hard for ourselves and that it could have worked out a lot worse for us if west brom were a little more clinical. Not sure why we don't take more shots on - it seems to be an instruction to retain possession at the expense of taking risks, which when we've got players like sule and Charly who have a bit of magic about them is a shame. Organisationally we are so much better than we started the season and the combination of THB, Holgate and Downes in the middle seems to make us pretty robust. Not sure what is wrong with Che - despite a couple of moments of effort he didn't seem like a player who was playing to get back in the team. On the plus side Stewart looked very positive. Fair play to RM - he's certainly taking us in the right direction and has the team playing for each other right to the death. I just wish he'd be a little more ambitious in getting a second and maybe even third goal.

I wonder if the problem with manning is that we would need a more defensive RB to tuck in when he roams forward and KWP isn't that player - maybe he would play better with Bree on the right? (I'm not advocating dropping KWP btw)

Who will want him though? - Questionable attitude - Poor scoring record (in premier league) - Not very effective by himself Doesn't strike me as a particularly desirable set of attributes.

Fair point. I've been heavily critical of him previously but today he played very well indeed.

Good stuff. Much more positive for most of the game - really need to do something about the dodgy spells though. Smallbone poor again for me - good when he actually plays the ball forward but a passenger without the ball and too many lazy backward passes. Flynn Downes and KWP were absolutely tremendous.

Let's not forget he promised us interesting football and has completely failed to deliver and has been far too chippy about the criticism from fans. If the team play consistently with purpose and he stops making bizarre excuses about scar tissue and it being the fans fault then maybe he'll start to win people over. Like NJ he seems to think he's got a god given right to all of the fans being onside rather than earning it.

I think it's more than this. If we are going to be serious contenders then we have to be better than most of the teams in the league; better than some by a small margin and better than a lot by a bigger margin. At the moment our results show we're barely better than some fairly average sides and a little better than some very poor ones.

Can't sniff at grinding out an away win even if the football wasn't brilliant. Hopefully we'll take some confidence from that.

You'd think Martin could spare some snake oil from his hair to cure the scars??