In part seven of a series looking back at what has been a memorable season, Mullet and HarryfromBath, with the help of some opposition supporters, reflect on a month which saw Town battling hard to stay in contention for a play-off place.

It was one week into the shortest month of the year before Town went to Rotherham. Town's first ever visit to the New York Stadium would prove to be less of a fairytale and pretty grim. The window had seen former loanee and one-goal wonder Conor Sammon now line up opposite his former colleagues.

Many who would have felt confident the much laughed at striker would threaten little, were wiping yolk from their gaping mouths at the sight of the pun-friendly striker sweeping home into the net, as all about him stopped and let the ball sit up in the area.

The team who had fielded so many former Town players this season had already opened the scoring in the first half, thanks again to Town's defensive largesse and inability to move at all, and the Blues crashed to a shocking 2-0 defeat. The winter gloom of January was yet to thaw.

The fact that a slow trudge home gave ample opportunity to mull over the opening move of the game, where goalscoring demigod Daryl Murphy had a golden opportunity to give Town the lead and failed dismally. It was a moment that is still etched on the memory for all the wrong reasons.

Town had had more chances than someone cheating at Monopoly and nearly lost 3-0 in the dying moments as Bart stopped a one-on-one. In a season full of highlights, the dimming of a foreboding doom hung above us now.

“‘You’ll never play us again!’ was the chant we heard whilst walking out of Portman Road after a 4-3 defeat to Ipswich confirmed our relegation from the Championship in 2005. I bet they wished they were right now!” Many home fans were delighted with the way they took the game to us, and they were in a mood to offer magnanimous birthday wishes to Mick.

“Happy birthday pal - I'll have a celebratory drink for you tonight”, “Mick is a real gent. He stayed on the pitch and shook every Rotherham player’s hand. Respect”, “He's a good manager. I've always liked him, even more so when he told Roy Keane where to go”, “He was the only centre-half who had Ronnie Moore in his pocket. He totally bossed him at Oakwell when they beat us 3-0.”

Of the many former Blues on show, Paul Green was the one singled out for praise. “I bet Mick is pig sick he let Paul Green go. He was the best player on the pitch today”, “Smallwood and Green were the key men protecting the back four. Green had one of those high energy games just like his Bolton performance.”

Next on the list Town were back at home facing more South Yorkshire opposition as the Owls flew into Portman Road. It took only 20 minutes for Town to concede again thanks to a mix-up between Christophe Berra and Bart. Mick had made five changes including nearly-man Jonathan Parr at left-back for Tyrone Mings, who had been terrible at Rotherham, and Freddie Sears was making a full debut following David McGoldrick's thigh injury.

At the time Mick told what turned out to be a white lie rather than raise a white flag of sorts, as the pivotal striker would prove to be missing for a long time. As it was, Town plodded on. It would take changes into the second half to make the difference tell. Murphy made it 19 for the season with a deft flick of the forehead, beating Keiren Westwood thanks to an in-swinger from new partner Sears.

Town's aerial dominance was greeted with a great reception from the home fans. Darren Ambrose hit the post when he probably should have added another rare headed goal to his tally. But it would be the captain who would power home a superb nod from another telling cross to make it 2-1 Town. Back to winning ways. The month's disappointing defeat was eased by the adherence to the adage of ‘win your home games’.

"That was our worst performance of the season, without a doubt. It was not like us at all. We were not at it from kick-off and that makes it even more frustrating. We were out-fought and out-battled and had too many men have an off-day. I said to the players at half-time I could have made six or seven changes - we can't keep relying on Keiren Westwood to make saves."
Stuart Gray’s post-match analysis [above] did little to appease Owls. Many felt that this was an opportunity lost and that they played too cautiously against a Ipswich team struggling for confidence. “‘Not like us at all?’. It was exactly like us - dour, toothless with no plan B.”

“That, simply put, was not good enough. We should have won that match”, “Gray was too cautious with his players, substitutions and approach.” Having one shot on target jarred with many of the visiting Yorkshire faithful. “Congratulations to Ipswich on ending their bad run”, “They were there for the taking tonight.”

“A team very low on confidence should have been killed off by half-time. They got back into it and as soon as they equalised they were always going to go in and win. Ipswich should have a few more as we caved in and never looked like scoring after the break.”

Four days later and Town were off for a Valentine’s Day in the capital to meet a bunch of Cottagers - something was in the air, even if it wasn't love. The team we eased past on the opening day were as different as the one we fielded back in August. It was Town who were looking to ride high as the recent Premier League club were languishing.

Murphy proved himself elusive as ever, becoming Town's first 20 goals a season striker since David Johnson in the 1999/00 promotion season and then hit his 21st before the first half was finished. Securing the win and that mythical status with goals as big as unicorn bollocks. Four thousand swelled the visitors’ end, 250 of them sailing into the game on a social media wave of attention on a specially chartered boat. It was optimism and enthusiasm such as that which made Murphy's double-headed delight either side of Ross McCormack's consolation.

Unfortunately Murphy broke his nose securing the second, even Sears' attempts to claim it on the way in didn't endure. There would be rightly great delight at that moment (not least as Murph was shirtless for some time thanks to all the blood), but it was an incident to prove as telling as McG's injury previously.

With the squad looking more and more lopsided thanks to the injury list, Irish wonderkid Dylan Connolly was watching on from the bench. The pacey winger had joined from Shelbourne late in the transfer window having impressed in a summer trial.

“I take my hat off to Ipswich and Mick McCarthy - that is how to play in the Championship. The ever-present ‘We must have pretty football’ brigade waded in with claims that he plays brutal, boring, bang it up front football. Many accused his sides of being over aggressive and dirty, but I didn't see much of that today.

“What I did see was an average team, well-disciplined in what they had to do and extremely hard-working with great desire to win each ball, each tackle and the game. Mick himself was urging the team on for the whole 90 minutes and displayed the same enthusiasm. We would not have scored in a month of Sundays but for that defensive howler by Tommy Smith.”

“Cast your minds back to the beginning of the season if you will/dare. Things felt new, there was an air of optimism around. Off we trundled up to Ipswich, and we started to see that perhaps this league wasn't going to be quite as easy as we'd hoped. No matter though, the opposition weren't brilliant and we did improve during the game, even scored late on and threatened to have another goal in us.

“Fast forward to yesterday with the same opposition but a different venue and to cut a long story short, it was the same result, complete with us only scoring after shipping two, and vaguely hinting we could score again.” Cottagers were mostly quick to admire an Ipswich team which did the double over them, although there were occasional criticisms borne out of defeat.

“Sour grapes maybe, but I can't see any way Ipswich could stay in the Premier League for more than a season? Well organised and physical yes, but did they actually play any football?”, “Ipswich were ordinary at best, well-organised but ordinary and they made us look like amateurs, and I think that is an insult to amateurs”, “Ipswich have players who know what their roles are.”

After Fulham came Reading, another recent soulless Premier League alumnus. The visitors capitalised on a dithering defence and after 14 minutes struck past Bartosz Bialkowski from distance. It was the first sign that the received wisdom that our defence was rock solid might be eroding. Town's bench included two new loans in the form of Richard Chaplow and Luke Varney.

Neither made much of an impression when they were unveiled before the game, strokes of hypothetical beards and hypothetical previous form being the rationale underpinning signings in positions where injuries were robbing Town of numbers and nous.

The masked Murphy failed to shake anonymity in a game where Town couldn't find a breakthrough to capture a point, let alone all three. The rare sight of a home defeat brought into sharp focus the jubilation of undoing Fulham a Saturday ago. An elusive penalty shout turned down and much puffing from Town drew little from a team who were happy to buffet our defenders with the muscular Russian on a reported £70,000 a week.

“Ho, ho, I didn't go to the Leeds and Wigan games but I imagine we did to Ipswich what they did to us. After 10 minutes I thought we were in for a bit of a tonking as Ipswich got behind us a couple of times and passed it around well but we slowly grew into the game and began exerting a measure of control without looking terribly threatening.”

Royals were widely gleeful over their smash-and-grab raid and never really felt threatened through the game. Many agreed that we played into the hands of a team who have enjoyed most success playing counter-attacking football. “We’ll give anyone a game away from home, and can get results when decent teams come at us. We just have no idea what to do when teams sit back and invite us to break them down.”

Thanks to a Sky intervention the month ended early with just the fifth game in three-and-a-bit weeks for a Town side looking to storm back into play-off security. Back under the lights at Portman Road against Birmingham.

In the reverse fixture it took two Berra goals to ameliorate the brace we gifted the Midlanders, this time Town made sure by doubling that number in a six-goal thriller. A team so maligned for lacking creativity would conspire to score four goals against a rejuvenated Brum in one of the more action-packed games of the period.

Parr and Ando were on the wings for Town, the Norwegian having made one or two recent cameos there which brought him into contention. It would be a game where a brace from the free-scoring and fast running Sears, a first goal for Mings (having had one denied at Fulham) with a dominant header and a lovely interchange that saw Kevin Bru also get on the scoresheet for the first time and Town stride to victory. Four goals and not one from Murphy is more telling that any statistic beyond three points.

With the rest of the league playing on the month's final day, Town fans had to wait until March to play again. Next time will realise the hope and heartache of a trip to a resurgent Norwich.

Despite securing the long-term services of young Teddy Bishop with a well deserved contract extension and the Blues returning to scoring form; Mick had made moves to sign Leicester flair player and French fancy Anthony Knockaert. The intent to add yet more quality was left at that, as after much speculating the move fell through. However, just before the end of the month his Foxes team-mate and Tommy Smith’s New Zealand room-mate Chris Wood joined on loan as cover for the injured McGoldrick.

In the meantime the feverish Yellows were now two points behind us and in fine form. No one really knew what to expect beyond brutality and booze-tinged adventures as the prospect of the gap they'd been minding being overcome in one hour and half long swoop. That'll have to wait until next time.

“This could be a really good time to be playing Ipswich”, “I think it's vital that we get at them from the start. If we can put pressure on it will make their fans edgy and that could work in our favour”, “ I think the opposite is true and that they will be all guns blazing to win tonight after a home defeat on Saturday.”

Some Birmingham fans were hopeful of capitalising on our erratic recent form, but by full time they were left bemoaning their poor defending. “My word. Why on earth did we play such a high line? It was unbelievable and asking for trouble”, “We are slow at the back and were punished by Freddie Sears pace.”

“If we keep conceding four every game, it will be a very long time until we win again”, “Back to square one Mr Rowett - somehow you have to stop us giving away sloppy goals”, “I was concerned about our back four all season and in recent weeks it's shown.”

2014/15 Championship Date Range: 1-AUG-2014 to 28-FEB-2015

Photo: Action Images

HarryfromBath added 12:13 - Jun 5 For some reason, the Birmingham highlights haven't loaded. Hopefully this link will work...
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Steve_M added 12:53 - Jun 5 Good thing you added that Harry, made for far better viewing than Mackie's did. Bart's drop off in form in February and March was pretty costly.
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whitey added 13:20 - Jun 5 Looking at that table it's ridiculous just how badly Derby bottled it. A 5 point gap between them in 1st and us in 3rd.
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Steve_M added 14:40 - Jun 5 @whitey you missed out hilarious from that first line!
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