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Ipswich Town 0-2 Nottingham Forest - Match Report Saturday, 19th Nov 2016 19:46
Two Britt Assombalonga goals, the first after 17 seconds, the fastest in the Championship this season, and the second in first-half injury time, saw Nottingham Forest to a 2-0 victory over the Blues at Portman Road, their first away win of the season. Town huffed and puffed as they looked for a way back into the game in the second half but never seriously threatened a resolute Forest backline.
Josh Emmanuel’s return for the injured Adam Webster was Town’s only change with the 19-year-old in his usual right-back role with skipper Luke Chambers moving to the centre of the defence.
Forest made two changes with Daniel Pinillos making his return from injury at left-back after 11 months with Hildeberto Pereira banned following his third red card of the season. Chris Cohen was absent with a groin injury and Thomas Lam came into midfield.
The game was only 17 seconds old when the visitors went in front. After Town had kicked off, a long ball hit forward by the Forest defence was nodded inside by Jonas Knudsen towards Christophe Berra but the Dane caught the centre-half off balance.
Ben Osborn picked up the loose ball and fed Assombalonga, who was in the clear to the left of goal and hit a shot across Bartosz Bialkowski and into the net to claim the fastest goal in the Championship so far this season.
Forest continued to have the better of the opening minutes and on seven Pajtim Kasami found himself the space to shoot at the far post on the right but failed to trouble Bialkowski.
In the 17th minute Assombalonga struck a freekick which caught the wall and was claimed by Bialkowski after Teddy Bishop had given the ball away to the former Peterborough striker, then fouled him not far outside the area.
A minute later, Kasami hit a low effort from the left which Bialkowski helped past his post, although the shot appeared to be going wide in any case.
Town’s first effort at goal came in the 19th minute but Tom Lawrence’s 30-yard freekick flew wide.
On 25 Bialkowski did well to stretch to grab Eric Lichaj’s deflected cross from the right ahead of Assombalonga, whose pace on the counter-attack was proving a big threat for the visitors.
Town had struggled to make an impression on the game having been rocked by the early goal but on the half hour they weren’t far from equalising.
Lawrence turned Emmanuel’s clever ball into feet into the path of McGoldrick, who cut in from the right and curled a shot which Forest keeper Vladimir Stojkovic pawed away from goal when the striker seemed destined to score against his old club.
But Forest remained the more dangerous looking side and went close again on 37 when Damien Perquis’s header from a corner on the right was blocked on the line at the post by Knudsen.
A minute before the scheduled break a frustrated McGoldrick was booked for a foul on Kasami on halfway having given the ball away just outside the Forest area.
And in the aftermath of the freekick, the visitors doubled their lead. The Blues were repeatedly unable to clear and Assombalonga stooped to head home after Matt Mills had nodded on a cross from the right which had deflected into the air.
Lawrence scuffed a frustrated shot well wide before the half was brought to an end by the referee’s whistle, which was greeted by a chorus of boos.
Town’s first half had got off to the worst possible start, had ended in the same manner and hadn’t been much better in between with the Blues never really getting going after the shock of conceding so early on.
When Town had got on the ball all too often passes went astray, while Lawrence’s freekick and McGoldrick’s shot, which was well saved by Stojkovic, were the only two chances which had been created.
The Blues, so impressive at Sheffield Wednesday a fortnight ago, required a huge improvement in the second half and it was little surprise that manager Mick McCarthy made two changes with Kevin Bru and one-time Forest loanee Jonny Williams replacing Bishop and Ward.
Town began the half on the front foot with a number of dangerous balls flying across the box but without falling to Blue shirts.
But it was Bialkowski who made the first serious save of the second half, the Polish keeper getting down to his right to block Henri Lansbury’s shot with Emmanuel hooking the loose ball away.
On 55 Lawrence smashed over a low ball from the right which Stojkovic palmed into the middle of the penalty area by past McGoldrick and rather fortunately to a Forest boot, which cleared.
A minute later double goalscorer Assombalonga was replaced by Apostolos Vellios, who was immediately booked for a foul on McGoldrick. On 63 Forest switched Pinillos for Michael Mancienne.
Forest should have made it 3-0 a minute later when the ball was cut back from the left and Berra stabbed it away from Vellios, but it fell loose to Kasami, who slammed his shot against the outside of the post from the edge of the box when he should have scored.
At the other end, Bru played in Sears on the right of the area but the former West Ham man’s ball into the area was cleared.
On 69 Lansbury was booked for a bodycheck on Sears, then while the Blues prepared to take the freekick Emmanuel was replaced by Luke Varney.
Town were getting balls in the box but all too often they’d be cleared by the first defender or would find the keeper’s arms. Forest were continuing to look much more of a danger on the break with a goal looking possible every time they went forward.
Lansbury curled a shot into Bialkowski’s arms in the 71st minute on such a counter-attack before Lawrence scraped a low shot wide at the other end.
Sub Varney threatened for the first time on 74 but Stojkovic got across to his left to claim.
Two minutes later, Lawrence claimed a penalty when he skipped into the area and appeared to have his legs taken from under him as he cut inside Mancienne. Referee Peter Bankes showed no interest.
Forest had another chance to make it 3-0 in the 83rd minute when skipper Chambers headed the ball into the path of Vellios, but his shot was too close to Bialkowski.
A minute later Lawrence claimed a penalty for a second time when he exchanged a one-two with McGoldrick and ran into the solid wall of Forest defenders which was continuing to successfully repel everything the Blues threw at them.
Town continued to look for an opening in vain as the game moved into four minutes of injury time, a somewhat conservative figure given the extensive time-wasting by Stojkovic and his defenders during the second half.
Knudsen shot wide from distance on the left, then shortly before the end the ball ricocheted over the bar off the Dane’s boot.
The final whistle was greeted by boos, albeit more muted than those at half-time, but after another frustrating half.
Having gained their two-goal lead before the break, Forest were able to sit back in numbers and defend their lead, which they did successfully with Stojkovic never forced to make a serious save.
Town, who have struggled when behind all season, frequently got into positions to get crosses into the area but the Forest backline were largely untroubled and deservedly recorded their first clean sheet of the season.
The visitors might well have won the game more convincingly with the second half’s best chances theirs, Kasami hitting the post with an opportunity he really should have taken.
The result, Town’s second home defeat of the season, sees the Blues drop to 17th in the table with QPR, who beat Norwich City 2-1 earlier today, at Portman Road next Saturday.
All the positive vibes from Hillsborough have gone & we're back to square one again. It was the worst possible start & really gave Forest a foothold in the first half. We defended awfully especially Berra, Knudsen & Chambers who were error ridden & got in a muddle on a number of occasions. Second half we went for it but there seemed to be no real plan or shape to it, no focal point to the attack. It feels as though Mick has realised he needs to be more attacking but doesn't really know how to do it. It's fine if we score first but, like today, if we go behind there is no idea of how we will get back into match. Today's performance was unacceptable, many fans at games are at best bored, at worst angry. They have had enough of the current ways & are starting to turn on manager & players. Things need to improve quickly
Er...have any of the people who criticise Evans ever read the Financial Fair Play Rules? These limit how much cash can be put into the club and how much we can lose each season. This includes paying wages (e.g. for loans, as well as spend on transfers). On the surface of it he may actually have put in as much as he could in the last few seasons. This season the rules have changed and you can run a larger debt than in previous seasons, though whether that's a good thing for a club already massively in debt I don't know. In practice this means while the club runs at a loss we can't really expect any marquee signings, although we should be able to use some of the money from the Murphy deal.
I don't know if Evans can write off the debt within the corporate structure of his group as some have suggested. This might be technically possible, it's more likely that the club debt reduces his overall tax bill, but that he'll still lose money from the club.
While it's frustrating that he's so low key, he has the benefit of not interfering with the football side of the club and as far as I can see he's not been as tight as people have made out, just constrained by the rules.
Somebody forgot to tell Knudsen, Bishop and Ward they were supposed to be playing football in the 1st half. Like everybody and his dog is saying poor performance and once again poor tactics with players continually moved around and out of position during the game. We never play well after a International break and we never play well on Sky so why should we have expected any other result than the one we achieved. The players we now have at the club can and should play outstanding football, pleasing to the eye and get the results we all want so bad, but and a big but, I don't think the manager is capable of a capable team selection coached and technically prepared to achieve this.
We seem to have any forward attacking tactics coached out of us at the moment and with players like Bru just strolling around when we need some urgency beggars belief. Williams showed the aptitude required at least let's hope it filters through to the rest of the team. If not it's going to be squeaky bum time for the rest of the season. Won't be long before attendance hits rock bottom as it was a lot less than the 15000 given today.
Fcuk this FPR Rules excuse. All along MM, and his supporters have been excusing his style of play on him not having his best players available. He now has and yet we still have today's debacle. The bottom line is he hasn't got a clue and it doesn't matter what players he has available
Warktheline. What a ridiculous thing to say let him take his pot of gold and walk away? Her great. He does that, we don't have a club to support. There's only 2 ways he may go. 1. Some buys the club. As i said in my last post. Not gonna happen with how much it would cost . 2. We get promoted, therefore he gets his money back and then can sell the club for much less. If only some would realise just how much money he's put into this club and how much he's spent on players, albeit not that much on transfer fees post Jewell, then maybe they wouldn't be quite so critical. Just as well he knows how to run a business, because clearly many on here have no idea
Lets be honest. Mick wont go unless Evans gives him a juicy payoff. His in a job and a paypacket . All beit a nice one. He won't go under his own steam
Surely Evans is a busineszman at heart, and will see sense sometime soon. The crowd of 15k is basically the season ticket holders plus away fans plus a very few stragglers dragged along in hope by mates. Crowds like that, sustained over 5-10 games will cost the club £250k per game vs the 22k fans we enjoyed when playing better football. Thats £1M-£2.5M in lost gate money alone. Come on Marcus - bring out your business side, get rid of McCarthy, stop boring your customers to death, and start to win the fans back with a modern manager who'll get us playing attractive football again. It makes economic sense as well as football sense.
I do agree warktheline that the soul of the club isn't there. But that's more due to the lack of entertainment on show. That team should have been good enough to win today. That it didn't was down to the manager and the players. No1 else. There are things about Evans I don't agree with but to blame him for the kind of football were playing is ridiculous.
In seasons past with us being just a few points off the play off's and with all but two thirds of the season still to be played I would not be concerned. Usually a bit of good form could be relied on as we then had talented squads. However this is not the case these days as our squad is by comparison from what we had a few seasons ago is very ordinary and poor and worse still consistently poor. We are in the table exactly where we deserve to be.
Sorry I do not have an answer aside from the obvious one of a complete change of manager and 90% of the players. It has also been said without exageration hundreds of times before by many but what is the owners ambition these days too?
All in all quite depressing and certainly no fun turning up at Portman Road these days. I will conclude my moan by adding a comment to McCarthy's wishes of making Portman Road a fortress again.......well Mr McCarthy, to do that our fortress needs to built out of bricks and mortar not Lego blocks!
I also have to conclude a % of players are just not at the races: Chambers (generally), Berra (past his peak), Knudsen (today), Skuse (generally), Bishop (since injury lay-off), Ward (of late), McG (past his peak), Sears (no goals, out of confidence) and these are regular starters - down to McCarthy to get the best out of them or drop them.
Seems like the 2014/15 play-off season is a distant memory, Can't see us getting back to that under MM now, he has to go.
The manager, players, owner and the whole board should shoulder the blame for what is happening and provide the solution before league one beckons. Where on earth is the leadership of my club ?
I can't believe there are still some idiots on here saying ' be careful what you wish for'. I will say one thing, as much as I hate the dumplings up the road at least the people who run the club are passionate about it. Alex Neil will be out before the end of the month because he has taken the club as far as he can. If only our owners were interested Boring Billy would have been out months ago
Marcus Evans thought he could get us up on a set amount and then his investment would multiply based on promotion. But he had a plan to do it in 2 or 3 seasons maximum. Now to do it would cost so much more therefore he's totally lost interest. He should just be honest and tell us what is clear to see. We're not stupid. He's clearly lost interest now his speculative plan hasn't worked out. If he knew anything about football or cared about the fans he wouldn't put up with a manager serving up such dross week in and week out. Ok we get the odd result like away to Sheff Wed which gave us a temporary lift. However, the team can't ever seem to manage back to back wins, let alone mount a good run of form to push us into any sort of contention. The club has long been a shambles. The time has come for ME the invisible man of Portman Road to put an honest statement out (without corporate spin) as we're being left totally in the dark. ME is the man pulling the strings, MM is just the puppet master. But when it comes to puppet masters, he's bloody awful! And what has happened to Teddy Bishop? If he's not careful he'll be loaned out to Colchester soon! What a mess!
And what is the point of Terry Connor? We might as well get in Des O'Connor as he'd probably be able to get our strikers sharper than TC has this season. I'm starting to think that the TC on his top really stands for Total Crap! Although he is meant to make Mick a lovely cuppa at half time so maybe TC stands for Top Cuppa!
Biggest statement fans can make is not turn up to the QPR game, just simply do not go.... empty stadium is the only way to make the fans concerns be heard... or not as the case maybe!!
All too easy to state it's another disappointing score and read, but in reality it's nothing new. After the last game you could be forgiven for thinking there may be some promise in the weeks ahead but all things considered we simply failed once more and dropped points you would have felt was ours for the taking before start of play.
Nottingham's first away win of the season thus far by all accounts and a similar thing occurred in the Rotherham game just recent. While we can't help ourselves, we're great at assisting other teams towards their achievements.
This only leaves the obligatory McCarthy out mention, but seriously, what's it going to achieve ? Pity is you feel we're going to be stuck with the clown for some considerable time to come - regardless of what takes place on the field of play.
Looking forward to the cup draw coming up soon on the domestic calendar, whether it's Manchester City or Maidenhead : got a feeling we're not going to be making much of an impact on the competition.
I've lost all interest in town now. Well... If I'm honest, I lost interest in September. Although if I'm struggling to sleep, I find popping down to watch the town tends to help!
@blues1, your another one of those aren't you..scary stuff modern day life! All too willing to accept 'greedy men' running the show! What would we do without our saviour Mr Capitalist, as I've said, what will be will be, yes our club is debt ridden, but in life what ever your circumstances there's a way forward, unfortunately sacrifices are required,but long term it's rewarding. I never blamed Evans for one pitch performances, but that said, it does highlight his lack of football knowledge,because for the best part of 2 years now McCarthy has been scratching his head, somehow unnoticed by our owner!!!! Don't need to add more, midastouch has more than built the case in regards to the 'strangulation and ultimate death of Ipswich Town FC'!!!!!!!!
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