Top - promotion confirmed at home to Fleetwood - 7th April. Confirmed Champions 28th April away to Plymouth.
After today's game I'm thinking of advancing my prediction for promotion to sometime in February!! For those who weren't there, it was akin to a valve blowing on a pressure cooker that had kept us frustrated for 3 seasons.
Congratulations to Paul Warne who has put together a squad of fit, talented and dedicated players who play an intense, pressing game which gives the opposition no time on the ball. He's also put together partnerships in key areas: Proctor/Moore, Frecks/Potter and Ajeyi/Ihiekwe which creates a solid platform for the rest of the team to operate around.
The resurgence and fitness of Newell is remarkable after the last couple of seasons and Williams is a revelation. Let's hope Ipswich keep winning so that MM is not tempted to call back Moore and Emmanuel in the near future.
By the way, anyone recall who the last Miller was to score a hat-trick?
I'm sticking with 8th and will have a review at Christmas. Our defence is a shambles at times - another near post corner goal tonight - following one on Saturday. Time Ajayi got another go and Wood has a rest. Purrington not as good as Mattock and why aren't we playing the right back we bought? We seem to be accommodating Vaulks at ***mings expense. Blackburn could have been beaten.
between 12th and 14th defensive not good enough for top ten and we can't score away from home as the formation is only successful at home, big test on saturday
(1) Moore returns to Ipswich in January, we get a striker who isn't 6ft5in, it forces us to pass the ball a bit, and we do ok.
(2) Moore stays and we use him properly as an option to go long to rather than a predictable battering ram, and we might finish top half and maybe top six.
(3) Moore stays or we replace him with something similar, we keep smashing it aimlessly towards the other end of the field, and we finish bottom half.
Not a criticism of Moore by the way. He has been excellent. There is nothing wrong with having a big target to go to from time to time, but just not all the time please. Sometimes perversely a team can benefit from losing a good player. I would rather him leave than carry on watching the sort of drivel we served up yesterday. My preference though would be for him to stay and for us not to get totally reliant on him.
I think we are good enough to finish top half, not sure about play offs though, that will depend on our Jan window business, i hope the HOR and Warne have got some players in mind, we need a GK, CB and a CF for me, maybe two CF if Moore goes back, then we will have a shout for the play offs,
We are now at the top of a helter skelter. Can anyone stop us from going on the slide? I don't think so. Well, not until after we have eaten our Christmas dinners and seen in the New Year.
Bottom half of the bottom half of the table at the rate we're going.
