It's All Going Wrong, Again Written by sam_n1 on Tuesday, 15th Dec 2020 12:51 There seems to be a pattern emerging of a consistent fall in form as this season starts to get up and running, especially during the Christmas fixtures. But who or what is down to? There is the obvious choice of Paul Lambert who is seeing these slumps in form throughout his reign as Ipswich manager, or is it down to Marcus Evans, who seems to have no ambition when running the club and is his cost-cutting causing the ridiculous number of injuries that the club have, which seems to be Lambert's favourite excuse? Lambert tried when he came into the club to get the fans on his side through buying everyone beers and the fracas against Norwich. However, this is starting wear off as could be seen by his swipe at the fans and media after the Oxford game that made him seem paranoid about everything. The problem he is facing is that this is not the first time these issues have occurred; it worryingly looks like it might be running the same course as last season. When this occurs, he often goes on the extreme defensive and his team selections start to become more and more erratic by playing young players who haven’t been near the first team squad for a league game before. On top of this the struggles that we face against other promotion rivals points to a certain level of tactical ineptitude from the manager which would again hamper chances that we would have of gaining promotion out of the league. Blame also must be put at the feet of the owner, whose ambitions for the club could easily be questioned because as it stands, we will just become more stagnant. However, he has kept the club afloat during these difficult times where other owners (such as Wigan’s) have deserted their club. Previously, in the play-off season under Mick McCarthy, we were in a prime position to gain promotion, all we needed was a bit of investment to strengthen the squad in January and it would have been unlikely that we would have fallen off as much as we did. After that season we just went further and further down with little investment and no real ambition, happy with the fact that we were staying in the Championship. It seems to be going the same way in League One. I believe that if Evans just came out saying that we have no money to spend the fans will respect it much more than him not saying anything at all, otherwise it leaves us in the dark about what is going on behind the scenes at the club. The only thing going for Lambert is the sheer number of injuries that the club have had this season. Before these injuries hit, we were putting on some impressive displays, notably the 4-1 win at Blackpool. This has damaged the squad greatly, a clear example of this is the centre midfield position where we seemed to have too many players, now we simply don’t have enough. The question still does need to be asked about the quality of our sports science as other clubs don’t have the same levels of injuries and this has been an issue that has hampered the club since McCarthy’s days. Adam Webster is a clear example, he was injury prone for the whole of his Ipswich career, yet he has had little injury problems since leaving the club. These issues are holding us back from putting a string of quality results together, as the team keeps having to change due to them. It is this inconsistency that will hamper the chances of us putting together a successful promotion charge, so the source of the injury crisis needs to be identified and quickly I hope as everybody else should that the club will be able to turn this around and it doesn’t end up being a mid-table season or one with comparable disappointment. There just needs to be a sense of hope and excitement around the club, especially with the fans, which could arguably be said hasn’t been the case since the play-off year in 2015. However, I don’t think that this can happen under the management of Lambert as he seems to have lost touch with the fans and doesn’t seem to be creating an organised team that will enable the club to mount a serious push for promotion this season. Please report offensive, libellous or inappropriate posts by using the links provided.
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