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The End of the Eight
Written by paulthebluealien on Wednesday, 22nd Oct 2014 14:31

So, Town's rather heroic run of unbeaten games has come crashing to an end.

A total of four wins and four draws from eight games is in any division, highly respectable. A run that has consisted of wins where we have played great football, scored sensational goals and kicked the poor cat when another 90+ goal has scrambled itself past our ginger bearded caveman goalkeeper.

Yet, is it not possible that last night's rather poor 3 - 1 defeat at Cardiff, a resurgent Cardiff I may add, be a blessing in disguise?

The Norwich game certainly was just that, it woke us up and we were forced into changing things and trying new players. I am not suggesting a similar overhaul, rather, that it will provide us with the bit between our teeth to kick Huddersfield into the stands on Saturday.

Now, it all depends whether you are a realist or a pessimist. A pessimistic person will argue, rightly in the Blackburn game only, that Town have dropped four points before Tuesday's dreary defeat. This is in part true. Although, it is forgotten that Forest battered us for large parts of the second half at the City Ground. A draw seemed fair enough in my eyes in that one. Despite the last-gasp goal.

Moreover, a pessimist will read our results as four games without a win, rather than the end of an eight-game unbeaten run. I would point out four consecutive wins beforehand.

I would also point to the stupidity of this division. Town are sitting on 20 points. The same as they were after 16 games last season. We missed out on the play-offs by four points, do the maths. We are very much in contention. Mick McCarthy has maintained that the play-offs are our aim. I am entitled to agree with him.

I do think, however, that one player has been largely overlooked in our recent games. That is because he has been injured. Luke Hyam is instrumental in our midfield. He offers defensive strength to what is, an increasingly attacking team.

We speak of balance and him, alongside old man Skuse, provide protection for the back four. The correlation of goals against in the eight games that Hyam was in the team is considerably lower than when Town were missing him.

Town do, however, have a strange vulnerability from set pieces and crosses at the moment. For a team that is known for its barbarian-style defending, this is rather surprising. At the moment, we are struggling to kill games off. I do, however, observe our next four games as vital. We have three out of four at home. With Huddersfield, Wolves and our bogey team Watford all coming to Portman Road.

It would not surprise me, if we picked up at least seven points in these games. The point dropped, of course, is for that blooming Watford game. Blackpool away, is of course, follows Huddersfield. Furthermore, I will challenge on here that Town's only defeat at home this season will be against those unloyal, angry, miserable, won nothing bunch in Norfolk. Any takers?

So, to conclude, where does this eight-game run and blunt display leave us? Well, in all, it has left us challenging at the right end of the table. We are scrapping away with about 14 others for those play-off places. A few, notably Charlton will fade away.

The defeat? The defeat will, in my opinion, give us a wake up call that no last-gasp equaliser can provide. We now know that we need to start winning football matches if we are going to succeed this year. I maintain, that we will do so.

@Puffman180




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Walk_the_Wark added 19:06 - Oct 22
Agree with some of this. I was certainly not surprised we lost last night. We will lose games away to good teams. However we clearly dropped 4 points in the games before. "Although, it is forgotten that Forest battered us for large parts of the second half at the City Ground"- not sure if you went to the Forest game? We were comfortably the better team. We were only under the cosh after MM decided to play a five man back line and invited Forest on. After that a draw was inevitable. I wasn't at the Blackburn game, but I'm told the same. It's McCarthys negative tactics which lost us those points. You cannot just shut up shop and defend leads..
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ChrisFelix added 09:16 - Oct 23
I to have noted the absence of Luke Hyam & im puzzled why a team of tall defenders continue to get caught at set pieces. Not critising Gerken but i feel he is the weakest link & maybe its time to give our number 2 a go
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MVBlue added 11:44 - Oct 24
Well observed correlation between Hyam missing and our dip from high.
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oldegold added 23:18 - Oct 24
Have to agree with Walk-the-Wark that fundamentally MM's negative defense ridden tactics will cost us in the long run, as it did last season when we had to take the game to Bournemouth only for him to stifle our attacking instincts and hand the initiative to the opposition.Whilst he is a good manager, he is very limited as far as strategy is concerned and I have said many times that in this division fortune favours the brave and if you look at the history of teams that have got promoted,it is generally the teams prepared to attack and not the ones that play the sterile, hoof it, safety-first and dire fare that MM serves up too many times.We won't get out of this division playing like this believe me.
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