| The scale of last season's collapse 08:39 - Aug 8 with 3737 views | Herbivore |
Just looking back at our form last season after our fast start and the enormity of our collapse is staggering. We took 27 points from the first 11 games and then only 25 points from our next 25 games, which is relegation form. If the season had started the day after the Fleetwood game and ended when it did we'd have only stayed up on goal difference on a PPG basis. That's why this "bad couple of months" narrative is both palpably false and very dangerous if we want to learn from what went wrong.
Doing some number crunching, after our strong start we only needed to average 1.48 PPG over our remaining 25 games to go up automatically and only 1.4 PPG to make the play offs. Over a season that would usually see you being around 9th to 13th in the league. Basically all we needed was to be a bang average League 1 side for 25 games and we'd have gone up or made the play offs. That Lambert couldn't even reach that modest goal shows the scale of his abject failure last season. How he's still in a job I have no idea. The guy is hopeless. He's Hurst level useless. |  |
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| The scale of last season's collapse on 09:00 - Aug 8 with 3324 views | Guthrum |
That does need breaking down a little further - tho I'm not disputing your final point. Indeed, it emphasises the scale of the collapse in the final couple of months and the inability to turn things around.
The season really needs to be split into three phases:
To 5th October, 11 games, 27 points, 2.45ppg (excellent start)
To 25th January, 16 games, 21 points, 1.31ppg (too many draws, but adequate)
To 7th March, 9 games, 4 points, 0.44ppg (the numbers speak for themselves)
After the second phase, we were still in touch. It really was the last six weeks of the season which sunk our chances. A collapse of that magnitude in no way absolves the Manager of responsibility for our position. It shouldn't happen, shouldn't have been allowed to happen. Very few would have kept their jobs after such a sequence, especially on top of failing to escape relegation the season before. |  |
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| The scale of last season's collapse on 09:10 - Aug 8 with 3276 views | Herbivore |
| The scale of last season's collapse on 09:00 - Aug 8 by Guthrum |
That does need breaking down a little further - tho I'm not disputing your final point. Indeed, it emphasises the scale of the collapse in the final couple of months and the inability to turn things around.
The season really needs to be split into three phases:
To 5th October, 11 games, 27 points, 2.45ppg (excellent start)
To 25th January, 16 games, 21 points, 1.31ppg (too many draws, but adequate)
To 7th March, 9 games, 4 points, 0.44ppg (the numbers speak for themselves)
After the second phase, we were still in touch. It really was the last six weeks of the season which sunk our chances. A collapse of that magnitude in no way absolves the Manager of responsibility for our position. It shouldn't happen, shouldn't have been allowed to happen. Very few would have kept their jobs after such a sequence, especially on top of failing to escape relegation the season before. |
Although that middle chunk is still very poor and is only as good as it is because of a brief uptick in January where we strung together a few wins. That upturn really looks like a blip when taken in the context of the rest of our form from early October to the premature end of the season.
We were still in touch after that up turn in form mainly because our good start had given us a big advantage and none of our rivals were really pulling away. That even continued to some extent, Rotherham were promoted automatically with a PPG that equates to 81 or 82 points over a 46 game season which is relatively low for one of the automatic places.
I agree that the fall away from the end of January onwards was spectacular and it should have seen Lambert given the boot without hesitation, but a lot of damage was done between mid October and January too when we were only picking up points at the rate of a bottom half side. That meant we were playing a bit of catch up rather than solidly but unspectacularly maintaining our position. The latter really ought to have been achievable. | |
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| The scale of last season's collapse on 09:12 - Aug 8 with 3265 views | Garv |
| The scale of last season's collapse on 09:00 - Aug 8 by Guthrum |
That does need breaking down a little further - tho I'm not disputing your final point. Indeed, it emphasises the scale of the collapse in the final couple of months and the inability to turn things around.
The season really needs to be split into three phases:
To 5th October, 11 games, 27 points, 2.45ppg (excellent start)
To 25th January, 16 games, 21 points, 1.31ppg (too many draws, but adequate)
To 7th March, 9 games, 4 points, 0.44ppg (the numbers speak for themselves)
After the second phase, we were still in touch. It really was the last six weeks of the season which sunk our chances. A collapse of that magnitude in no way absolves the Manager of responsibility for our position. It shouldn't happen, shouldn't have been allowed to happen. Very few would have kept their jobs after such a sequence, especially on top of failing to escape relegation the season before. |
The Rotherham, Peterborough and Sunderland sequence killed us and must have drained all confidence because we were turd after that. That was billed as a huge week in our season and we completely bottled it. |  |
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| The scale of last season's collapse on 09:16 - Aug 8 with 3247 views | Herbivore |
| The scale of last season's collapse on 09:12 - Aug 8 by Garv |
The Rotherham, Peterborough and Sunderland sequence killed us and must have drained all confidence because we were turd after that. That was billed as a huge week in our season and we completely bottled it. |
Rotherham and Peterborough demolished us and they did it simply by being set up well with a clear game plan and players selected to execute that game plan. They highlighted everything we're not under Lambert. | |
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| The scale of last season's collapse on 09:19 - Aug 8 with 3242 views | Cheltenham_Blue |
"The guy is hopeless. He's Hurst level useless."
Let's not be too hasty, when he starts gutting our team of mid level league one players and starts replacing them with National League 'Winners,' then I'm all on board with your assertion.
Until then, he's just hopeless.. |  |
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| The scale of last season's collapse on 09:23 - Aug 8 with 3217 views | Herbivore |
| The scale of last season's collapse on 09:19 - Aug 8 by Cheltenham_Blue |
"The guy is hopeless. He's Hurst level useless."
Let's not be too hasty, when he starts gutting our team of mid level league one players and starts replacing them with National League 'Winners,' then I'm all on board with your assertion.
Until then, he's just hopeless.. |
I'd say he's up there in terms of cluelessness. Whether he's done as much damage is another argument, but to have the season we've just had with the resources available to him, I'd say Lambert is reaching those upper echelons of uselessness. | |
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| The scale of last season's collapse on 09:30 - Aug 8 with 3202 views | Meadowlark |
| The scale of last season's collapse on 09:19 - Aug 8 by Cheltenham_Blue |
"The guy is hopeless. He's Hurst level useless."
Let's not be too hasty, when he starts gutting our team of mid level league one players and starts replacing them with National League 'Winners,' then I'm all on board with your assertion.
Until then, he's just hopeless.. |
I'm not disputing any of this, but even during the first third when we were winning and top, we were hardly convincing were we? To me, it's more like the end of the season better reflected our season's performances overall. The early season points gathering was quite frankly unbelievable, and many of those games I couldn't fathom out how we had actually won. There were a handful of games where we might have been the better side, but in these cases, the opposition was truly woeful.
It was nice to win and be top of the league but I came away from many of those games shaking my head.
I've spent most of the last twenty years exiting Ipswich matches shaking my head. |  | | |
| The scale of last season's collapse on 09:35 - Aug 8 with 3181 views | Guthrum |
| The scale of last season's collapse on 09:10 - Aug 8 by Herbivore |
Although that middle chunk is still very poor and is only as good as it is because of a brief uptick in January where we strung together a few wins. That upturn really looks like a blip when taken in the context of the rest of our form from early October to the premature end of the season.
We were still in touch after that up turn in form mainly because our good start had given us a big advantage and none of our rivals were really pulling away. That even continued to some extent, Rotherham were promoted automatically with a PPG that equates to 81 or 82 points over a 46 game season which is relatively low for one of the automatic places.
I agree that the fall away from the end of January onwards was spectacular and it should have seen Lambert given the boot without hesitation, but a lot of damage was done between mid October and January too when we were only picking up points at the rate of a bottom half side. That meant we were playing a bit of catch up rather than solidly but unspectacularly maintaining our position. The latter really ought to have been achievable. |
That middle period was also the most "difficult" in terms of fixture congestion with the cup games, players absent on international duty (leading to postponed matches), injuries and suspensions. Most of that was out of the way by early January, when things picked up a bit.
It's perhaps unexpected that the tempo would have dropped somewhat, even if some of the postponements were self-inflicted. | |
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| The scale of last season's collapse on 09:36 - Aug 8 with 3175 views | Herbivore |
| The scale of last season's collapse on 09:30 - Aug 8 by Meadowlark |
I'm not disputing any of this, but even during the first third when we were winning and top, we were hardly convincing were we? To me, it's more like the end of the season better reflected our season's performances overall. The early season points gathering was quite frankly unbelievable, and many of those games I couldn't fathom out how we had actually won. There were a handful of games where we might have been the better side, but in these cases, the opposition was truly woeful.
It was nice to win and be top of the league but I came away from many of those games shaking my head.
I've spent most of the last twenty years exiting Ipswich matches shaking my head. |
We certainly weren't great in those early games but what we were was pretty solid with a consistent spine of the team with enough individual quality to nab a goal or two. That was sufficient because League 1 is awful and even the better sides we played during that run weren't good enough to really hurt us. I think it's wrong to say we didn't deserve to win many of those games, we rarely outplayed anyone but we were doing enough to win.
I'd say the middle period of the season is more reflective of our season as a whole. Confused selections, no obvious tactical plan, not creating enough but still occasionally putting together a performance to get a win with the very occasional game where our quality really told and we won comfortably. If the final run of games had been genuinely representative of our season we'd have gone down by a mile. | |
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| The scale of last season's collapse on 09:37 - Aug 8 with 3176 views | Pinewoodblue |
| The scale of last season's collapse on 09:30 - Aug 8 by Meadowlark |
I'm not disputing any of this, but even during the first third when we were winning and top, we were hardly convincing were we? To me, it's more like the end of the season better reflected our season's performances overall. The early season points gathering was quite frankly unbelievable, and many of those games I couldn't fathom out how we had actually won. There were a handful of games where we might have been the better side, but in these cases, the opposition was truly woeful.
It was nice to win and be top of the league but I came away from many of those games shaking my head.
I've spent most of the last twenty years exiting Ipswich matches shaking my head. |
Surely that Reflects on the lack of quality in the league.
At least Lambert won’t be able to blame the fans if we get off to a poor start. There will be nowhere for him to hide. |  |
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| The scale of last season's collapse on 09:47 - Aug 8 with 3162 views | Steve_M |
| The scale of last season's collapse on 09:10 - Aug 8 by Herbivore |
Although that middle chunk is still very poor and is only as good as it is because of a brief uptick in January where we strung together a few wins. That upturn really looks like a blip when taken in the context of the rest of our form from early October to the premature end of the season.
We were still in touch after that up turn in form mainly because our good start had given us a big advantage and none of our rivals were really pulling away. That even continued to some extent, Rotherham were promoted automatically with a PPG that equates to 81 or 82 points over a 46 game season which is relatively low for one of the automatic places.
I agree that the fall away from the end of January onwards was spectacular and it should have seen Lambert given the boot without hesitation, but a lot of damage was done between mid October and January too when we were only picking up points at the rate of a bottom half side. That meant we were playing a bit of catch up rather than solidly but unspectacularly maintaining our position. The latter really ought to have been achievable. |
On the middle part of the season, in between you and Guthers here. We lost two matches and then follow that with two away wins at the start of November. At that point it wasn’t too bad but the following week - Blackpool, Wycombe at home, Coventry in the cup is when we started to have problems.
A poor game against a basic but well organised team, a compelling match in which we were robbed by a team of cheats and a last minute equaliser in a match we should have seen out. Had that gone better then it might have all been different. But it didn’t and we followed that with a truly awful December. That was when it went wrong but it wasn’t irredeemable asJanuary showed. |  |
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| The scale of last season's collapse on 11:14 - Aug 8 with 3048 views | tractordownsouth |
| The scale of last season's collapse on 09:16 - Aug 8 by Herbivore |
Rotherham and Peterborough demolished us and they did it simply by being set up well with a clear game plan and players selected to execute that game plan. They highlighted everything we're not under Lambert. |
That second Rotherham game I don't think they were all that, just slightly less terrible. They completely outclassed us at PR though, best performance by an away team all season, even though we gifted them the second goal. |  |
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| The scale of last season's collapse on 11:20 - Aug 8 with 3026 views | bobbyramsey |
| The scale of last season's collapse on 09:00 - Aug 8 by Guthrum |
That does need breaking down a little further - tho I'm not disputing your final point. Indeed, it emphasises the scale of the collapse in the final couple of months and the inability to turn things around.
The season really needs to be split into three phases:
To 5th October, 11 games, 27 points, 2.45ppg (excellent start)
To 25th January, 16 games, 21 points, 1.31ppg (too many draws, but adequate)
To 7th March, 9 games, 4 points, 0.44ppg (the numbers speak for themselves)
After the second phase, we were still in touch. It really was the last six weeks of the season which sunk our chances. A collapse of that magnitude in no way absolves the Manager of responsibility for our position. It shouldn't happen, shouldn't have been allowed to happen. Very few would have kept their jobs after such a sequence, especially on top of failing to escape relegation the season before. |
Hear hear!!
Total feckin loser..... |  | | |
| The scale of last season's collapse on 11:27 - Aug 8 with 2994 views | Herbivore |
| The scale of last season's collapse on 11:14 - Aug 8 by tractordownsouth |
That second Rotherham game I don't think they were all that, just slightly less terrible. They completely outclassed us at PR though, best performance by an away team all season, even though we gifted them the second goal. |
They weren't great but they still bossed us totally in the away match. Played us off the park at PR as well and I agree they were better that night. | |
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| The scale of last season's collapse on 11:50 - Aug 8 with 2961 views | hadleighboyblue |
| The scale of last season's collapse on 09:16 - Aug 8 by Herbivore |
Rotherham and Peterborough demolished us and they did it simply by being set up well with a clear game plan and players selected to execute that game plan. They highlighted everything we're not under Lambert. |
Spot on Herbivore , lesser team in terms of resources and finances were able to out play and outhink us .
The lack of spirit and much fight was unacceptable , we ended up where we deserved to be .
PL seemed to completely run out of ideas and the players seemed lost |  | | |
| The scale of last season's collapse on 13:22 - Aug 8 with 2842 views | ArnieM |
I actually feel Lambert had lost the trust of the players with all his squad rotation crap. The players didn’t know if they we’re coming or going. Why should they bust a gut and then be dropped for no good reason.. |  |
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| The scale of last season's collapse on 13:24 - Aug 8 with 2838 views | ArnieM |
| The scale of last season's collapse on 09:00 - Aug 8 by Guthrum |
That does need breaking down a little further - tho I'm not disputing your final point. Indeed, it emphasises the scale of the collapse in the final couple of months and the inability to turn things around.
The season really needs to be split into three phases:
To 5th October, 11 games, 27 points, 2.45ppg (excellent start)
To 25th January, 16 games, 21 points, 1.31ppg (too many draws, but adequate)
To 7th March, 9 games, 4 points, 0.44ppg (the numbers speak for themselves)
After the second phase, we were still in touch. It really was the last six weeks of the season which sunk our chances. A collapse of that magnitude in no way absolves the Manager of responsibility for our position. It shouldn't happen, shouldn't have been allowed to happen. Very few would have kept their jobs after such a sequence, especially on top of failing to escape relegation the season before. |
At what point did he star5 to meddle with team selections? Because I think that’s was when it started to go badly wrong. | |
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| The scale of last season's collapse on 13:31 - Aug 8 with 2823 views | Dennyx4 |
| The scale of last season's collapse on 13:24 - Aug 8 by ArnieM |
At what point did he star5 to meddle with team selections? Because I think that’s was when it started to go badly wrong. |
To be fair that was quite early on - I remember the Wimbledon Home night game - we made several changes and didnt get going until we made subs in the second half.
Seems all but forgotten, because we won with an injury time winner from Jackson - but there was a lot of rotation even early in the season. |  | | |
| The scale of last season's collapse on 13:38 - Aug 8 with 2809 views | Herbivore |
| The scale of last season's collapse on 13:31 - Aug 8 by Dennyx4 |
To be fair that was quite early on - I remember the Wimbledon Home night game - we made several changes and didnt get going until we made subs in the second half.
Seems all but forgotten, because we won with an injury time winner from Jackson - but there was a lot of rotation even early in the season. |
We did keep a largely settled spine though and in a couple of games where we tried something different we reverted back when it wasn't working (Wimbledon and Tranmere spring to mind). The much more extensive rotation and tinkering started in October and carried on through from there, with a brief pause in January. | |
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| The scale of last season's collapse on 14:02 - Aug 8 with 2749 views | ArnieM |
| The scale of last season's collapse on 13:38 - Aug 8 by Herbivore |
We did keep a largely settled spine though and in a couple of games where we tried something different we reverted back when it wasn't working (Wimbledon and Tranmere spring to mind). The much more extensive rotation and tinkering started in October and carried on through from there, with a brief pause in January. |
I don’t think we’ve got a bad squad for league one tbh. But I think the constant team changes and postponed games is ultimately what sunk us. This is so correctable , and with key players hopefully back from injury ( we seem to say this every season !), we really should be in or around that top six this season in my opinion. The big question is , can we trust Lambert to pick his best 11 and stick with them? | |
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| The scale of last season's collapse on 14:35 - Aug 8 with 2683 views | jayessess |
| The scale of last season's collapse on 09:23 - Aug 8 by Herbivore |
I'd say he's up there in terms of cluelessness. Whether he's done as much damage is another argument, but to have the season we've just had with the resources available to him, I'd say Lambert is reaching those upper echelons of uselessness. |
I think there's a very strong argument that Lambert has been worse than Hurst. Hurst got 13 league games and one transfer window to transform a team built in someone else's image on a very small budget. He was confronted by a bunch of senior pros who were upset the last guy had gone. He'd never coached at this level before and didn't get the rub of the green in his first few games, just when it would've been important to build some buy in for the project.
Lambert had bags of experience in the Championship and above. He had 33 league games to effect some sort of improvement on the lowest of bases via coaching, tactics, organisation, motivation, plus a transfer window. Our points per game nevertheless declined.
He then got a whole season, including 2 transfer windows, at a lower level where our resources are substantially higher than most clubs in the division. Still failed. |  |
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| The scale of last season's collapse on 14:58 - Aug 8 with 2644 views | BlueBadger |
| The scale of last season's collapse on 14:35 - Aug 8 by jayessess |
I think there's a very strong argument that Lambert has been worse than Hurst. Hurst got 13 league games and one transfer window to transform a team built in someone else's image on a very small budget. He was confronted by a bunch of senior pros who were upset the last guy had gone. He'd never coached at this level before and didn't get the rub of the green in his first few games, just when it would've been important to build some buy in for the project.
Lambert had bags of experience in the Championship and above. He had 33 league games to effect some sort of improvement on the lowest of bases via coaching, tactics, organisation, motivation, plus a transfer window. Our points per game nevertheless declined.
He then got a whole season, including 2 transfer windows, at a lower level where our resources are substantially higher than most clubs in the division. Still failed. |
I'd agree with all that, apart from the bit about Hurst's failure being down to the senior pros. By all accounts he went out of his way to antagonise them, purely because he clearly felt threatened by them. |  |
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| The scale of last season's collapse on 15:02 - Aug 8 with 2637 views | Herbivore |
| The scale of last season's collapse on 14:35 - Aug 8 by jayessess |
I think there's a very strong argument that Lambert has been worse than Hurst. Hurst got 13 league games and one transfer window to transform a team built in someone else's image on a very small budget. He was confronted by a bunch of senior pros who were upset the last guy had gone. He'd never coached at this level before and didn't get the rub of the green in his first few games, just when it would've been important to build some buy in for the project.
Lambert had bags of experience in the Championship and above. He had 33 league games to effect some sort of improvement on the lowest of bases via coaching, tactics, organisation, motivation, plus a transfer window. Our points per game nevertheless declined.
He then got a whole season, including 2 transfer windows, at a lower level where our resources are substantially higher than most clubs in the division. Still failed. |
Actually that's not quite right in terms of PPG under Hurst and Lambert, we were marginally better under Lambert:
Hurst - 9 points from 14 games, 0.64 PPG
Lambert - 22 points from 31 games, 0.71 PPG
That said, it's still a pitiful effort and he's only ahead because we beat Leeds in a dead rubber on the final day. He should have done better, especially after he was allowed to spend a decent chunk of money (on wages and loan fees at least) in January.
In terms of management there's not much in it between them. I make Hurst worse purely because of the damage he managed to do during his time here. He ripped up a decent enough Championship squad and filled it with average players, each of them a downgrade on what was here before. Lambert inherited a bit of a mess and just isn't good enough to make it any better. It's a bit like Keane and Jewell in some ways, both hopeless but one was destructive and out of his depth, the other is just clueless. | |
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| The scale of last season's collapse on 15:14 - Aug 8 with 2618 views | BlueBadger |
| The scale of last season's collapse on 09:37 - Aug 8 by Pinewoodblue |
Surely that Reflects on the lack of quality in the league.
At least Lambert won’t be able to blame the fans if we get off to a poor start. There will be nowhere for him to hide. |
Well, there will be for a while. If we're playing to empty stadia he'll be claiming performances haven't matched results. Like he did when we were getting spinelessly relegated. | |
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| The scale of last season's collapse on 15:30 - Aug 8 with 2595 views | BlueBadger |
| The scale of last season's collapse on 14:02 - Aug 8 by ArnieM |
I don’t think we’ve got a bad squad for league one tbh. But I think the constant team changes and postponed games is ultimately what sunk us. This is so correctable , and with key players hopefully back from injury ( we seem to say this every season !), we really should be in or around that top six this season in my opinion. The big question is , can we trust Lambert to pick his best 11 and stick with them? |
The answer to this is 'no'. He only stopped rotating the squad in January because Evans told him to. | |
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