Big Vic Felled by Tranquilizer Dart
Tonight’s FA Cup 3rd Round Replay has been picked
for live screening by BBC1. Great, the
whole country will tune in to see the team that just won at Man United, lose
1-0 to a Championship side, probably. To
be honest, it’s hard to know how we’re going to do in this game. We should win of course but then, we should
have beaten Sheffield United in the other cup.
The wins against Arsenal and United seem to have moved the goalposts
somewhat regarding rotating players as the perception is now that we are right
in the mix for a Champions League place.
I still, really can’t take that seriously myself but anyway, maybe a few
fringe players will improve the attitude which I did think was a bit half-arsed
in the first game.
A quick check reveals Ipswich to be 3rd in the
Championship, just a point off top spot which is currently occupied by the
Dorset Oddballs. They got beaten at home
by Derby on Saturday when a win would have put them top, so will be looking at
tonight as an opportunity for a pick-me-up.
Saints just need to keep it going of course but whilst we are all
basking in the glory of the Old Trafford win, talkSPORT presenter and Daily
Mail columnist and professional Devil’s Advocate Adrian Durham has been
sticking the boot in because we played well defensively at Old Trafford and
didn’t go out to try and blast them off the park. Loads of teams go to United at try and
out-score them in an open expansive game don’t they Adrian? Even Chelsea don’t do that. I’m mentioning it because it made me
laugh. I’m, not mentioning it because I
want to give Adrian Durham any more exposure... in fact, I’ll shut up about it
as he’s a compete penis.
The team news is in and ....meh! The most glaring issue is
that Pellè isn’t playing which immediately makes me think ‘Sheffield
United’. The list of names makes me
think that Bertrand is on the left wing again but unlike at Sheffield United,
he’s on the left of a back 3 with Fonte and Gardos. Targett and Clyne are the
wing backs with Big Vic, Harrison reed and JWP in midfield. Tadic and Long are
up front. Ipswich have McGoaldrought up
front and the comedy bearded Bartosz Bialkowski is in goal. I liked Bart and thought he was pretty good
in the main, THAT mistake aside. He
could easily have succeeded Kelvin Davis as first choice keeper but for a
strange alcohol induced decision by Whiskey George Burley to drop him for the
playoff semi-final against Derby – a move which seemed to shatter his
confidence. I wonder if George is here
today as he has connections with both clubs.
Maybe he is or maybe he’s sat under a bridge with a bottle in a brown
paper bag. Has Rudi Skacel signed yet?
Away we go and after a nondescript opening five minutes, we
have a bit of a scare as Ambrose lifts it over Gardos and Stephen Hunt runs in,
to knock it past Fraser in a scruffy little git kind of way. The flag is up and rightly so but it’s very
close. Whilst the neutral and the BBC
may have wanted an Ipswich goal to liven it up, we certainly didn’t and got to
work at trying to work the ball up to Shane Long. Reed started a move in our half and fed Clyne
who advanced and found Tadic. The Lion
of Old Trafford backheeled between two defenders to JWP who was tackled in the
area, the ball squirting out to Long to the right and with a first time swing
of his left boot, he despatched it inside the near post without giving Bart a
chance. Nice build up and a great finish
and 1-0 to us.
Ipswich would now have to come out and play which is
something they haven’t looked capable of doing since they went in front at St.
Marys. Two Ipswich midfielders faff
about with the ball a bit too long and both get Wanyammered as the big man
emerges with the ball and feeds JWP whose shot is deflected over the bar for a
corner. Hyam, who was one of Big Vic’s
victims, looks like he’s been hit by a train and he eventually gets back to his
feet. JWP’s corner is headed away by a
combination of two Ipswich players and the ball goes to Big Vic who humorously
tries to score goal of the season with a volley but completely misses the
ball. The two Ipswich players concerned
have banged heads and though he ended up with a turban bandage on his head,
Murphy must have been pleased to actually connect with something.
Ipswich are totally lacking in any ideas at all. They advance to the half way line and are
then confronted by midfielders and they either bang it long which is meat and
drink to the back 3, or they turn round and knock it back to Bart. Chambers managed to give Shane Long a sniff
from one such backpass and Bart’s clearance hits the Irishman on the back and
Ipswich got lucky with the bounce. It
says something that McGoldrick is their best player and he’s crap. He gets an opening on the right of goal and
instead of putting it across for Hunt to tap in, lashes it wide of the near
post in a display of complete brainlessness.
We nearly make it 2-0 as Tadic dances in from the right but
there’s a decent block by Chambers and Berra as he works it onto his left foot
and hits it. The rebound drops to JWP
who hits it at the floodlights. It’s uninteresting
but very very comfortable and as half time approached, a ball is played behind
the left back for Big Vic to chase and he pulls up with the hamstring grab of
doom. Shite, shite, shite! Of all the people to go down injured. Steve Davis is ready to come on but Koeman
decides to wait until half time, I assume to give him time to warm up
properly. Half time happens and 1-0 up
and decent with the injury to Big Vic being a major downer.
I’m not gonna lie… the second half was shit. The wind was howling and the pitch was crap
and the game basically did nothing.
Steve Davis was on for Big Vic and he was helping Saints have more
control in the middle of the park but we were playing in 2nd gear. Tadic looked like he had to chance to burst
onto a pass at one point but he went from favourite for it to giving up in an
instant. Ipswich threw on Tyrone Mings
at left back and he attempted to show Saints what they’d let go at 16 by having
a right battle with Clyney. He was
apparently let go by Saints for being too small at 16 which is hard to imagine
as he’s 6 foot 5 now. He gets a cross in
from the left and Ambrose flicks a header goalwards off his ear which Fraser
picks up comfortably.
Pellè came on for Tadic who couldn’t wait to get off and
this was the signal for us to put more ball up in the air which bearing in mind
the swirling wind, probably wasn’t the best thing to do. In a rare outbreak of football, Davis spread
the play to Long and eventually got the ball back before wafting a hopeless
effort into the crowd. It was that kind
of second half. Ipswich tried to inject
some urgency as the game wore down but the defence was expertly marshalled by
José Fonte and he, Gardos and Bertrand remained completely untroubled by the
Ipswich attack. There was an irrational
fear that sods law was about to let Ipswich equalize and us have to sit through
another 30 minutes of this but in truth, it was never going to happen. And that was it…. Into the 4th Round
we go.
The BBC studio team seemed to be bemoaning the fact that it
was a bit of a bore and that they could have been at Valley Parade (4-0) or White
Hart Lane (4-2) and brought the nation a more exciting game. Once we scored we were only ever going to do
the bare minimum to win the game and that’s what happens when you have 3 away
games in 7 days. What did they expect
exactly?
They probably expected Ipswich to have a go which they
didn’t really do. I thought they were
desperate to be honest and whilst I have no real idea who their regular
starting XI is, I know that Murphy and Fatty McGoldrick are regulars and if
that strike force can get you to the top of the Championship then heaven help
us, as they were shockingly bad.
Defensively they weren’t bad with Chambers, Smith and Berra looking ok
and Mings was good when he came on. Some
of the other like Parr and Hyam were terrible though. Good luck to them though and I hope they do
well. I would rather they came up than
Derby or Middlesbrough.
Saints on the other hand did what they had to do and won the
game. The problem of not winning at SMS
in the first game was brought home though by Big Vic’s hamstring. Ronald confirmed afterwards that he was going
to play half a game each with Steven Davis and whilst that was sensible and
therefore, we were unlucky to lose him with 10 seconds of the first half
left... it would have been better to have won the first game and not been here
at all. The injuries are suddenly
racking up again as we’ve lost Alderweireld and Schneiderlin from the United
game and Big Vic from this one. Midfield
is the obvious area of concern but we still have Steve Davis, JWP, Harrison
Reed and Jack Cork is fit again. In
addition we have Elia to come back in so it’s not all doom and gloom.
So, we have a few choices to make for the Newcastle game on
Saturday. I’m not sure we’d play Ryan
Bertrand as one of a back 3 in a league game so I reckon it will be the regular
back 4 with Davis and Cork in front of them with JWP, Tadic and Elia supporting
Graziano. We also have Shane Long and
Harrison Reed to throw into the mix so it’s not all bad news and I’d trust
Koeman to get a result with those resources.
Two games into our
nightmare week of away games and we’ve won both of them which is something not
many would have predicted. Lets’ get up
there and win this one as well and trigger another True Geordie rant perhaps. We weren’t great today and we certainly
weren’t entertaining and I for one don’t give a sh1te. Out status in the top 4 does not mean we are
obliged to entertain the masses. We did
what we had to do, end of.
No comments:
Post a Comment