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Lambert Left Rueing Failure to Take Chances
Saturday, 22nd Feb 2020 18:21

Town boss Paul Lambert was left ruing the Blues’ failure to take their first-half chances after their 1-0 home defeat to Oxford United.

“I’ve just counted five really good chances in the first half,” he said. “The lads are doing really well playing-wise, they’re creating chances, the stats, I’m never one for stats, but they back up the chances we’re creating and not taking them.

“I’m not going to sit here and chastise the guys, they do everything how we ask them to go and do it. They create, they do the right things, it’s just that little finishing touch really. We’ve just got to keep working hard and hopefully that changes.”

Town were less dominant in the second half, did Lambert want to see more from his side after the break?

“They defended well, the crosses,” he reflected. “We had some really good areas, good moves, crosses into the box, good situations, good moments. That becomes the final pass, they defended strongly and tried to hit us on the counter but there was never really much threat from them on that side of it.

“Whereas we were trying to knock on the door, but it just never unlocked. But the chances in the first half, if you take one or two of them then it becomes a totally different game.

“I think if we’d gone in two or three up I don’t think anybody would have begrudged us that.”

Regarding the introduction of Freddie Sears as a sub in the 90th minute, he said: “I just thought Judgey was doing well. I just thought ‘Do we do it or not?’ because there wasn’t too much wrong regarding dominating the ball, that was totally fine.

“We thought ‘Should we out him on earlier or should we put him on now?”. I’d rather try something than not try anything. The team wasn’t under any danger, they weren’t really breaking at all against us.”

He added: “If you’re a sub and you get on, it doesn’t matter if you’re on for a minute. A great manager used to say to me, ‘If you come on in the 90th minute and there’s a minute to go, make sure you give me 90 minutes in that one minute’. And that’s always stuck with me, and he was a great, great manager.”

The Town boss said he wasn’t sure what happened regarding Kayden Jackson’s sending off, a card of a type the striker won’t have been looking for on his 26th birthday, which was for an apparent stamp on Oxford skipper Rob Dickie.

“I’ve not seen it yet, I’d need to see it,” he said. “People are saying he stamped on the guy but I’ve not seen it. I’ve not seen it, your angle is looking down, I can’t see that. I don’t know.”


Lambert says the striker was less than impressed with the dismissal: “No, he’s not that type of player, Kayden, not that type of player. I’d have to have a look at it to see what happened.”

He says he’ll consider an appeal if he believes there are grounds, although was concerned that there might be the possibility of an increased ban.
“Yes, if I think there are [grounds],” he said. “Unless I’m wrong the rule is that if you lose it he gets another game on top of it.

“It’s three games as it stands for violent conduct. But, as I said before, I can’t comment as I’ve not seen it.”

Lambert admits he is now very short of strikers with James Norwood out for a number of weeks having undergone groin surgery yesterday.

“Yes, but as I said earlier on, sometimes adversity can make you stronger in a lot of aspects of it,” he said. “And if that’s the case we have to get on with it and we have to go through with it.

“We’re lucky we’re getting Freddie back and Bish back, which is a bonus. If it is three games and we don’t appeal it, we’ll look at it. As I say, sometimes adversity can make you stronger.

“There’s Freddie, there’s Bish. I’ve no [problem] with the guys, they did great with the ball, but the chances, the chances, you have got to score when you’re making them. There’s no grey area. There’s pressure on the guys to score and you’ve got to take them when they come.”

Flynn Downes looked to be feeling what appeared to be a groin problem in the second half but Lambert was hopeful that the midfielder will be fine.

“We thought that when he did it but I think he just slipped, so hopefully he’s OK,” he said.

At the end there were boos from some sections of the support aimed towards Lambert and assistant Stuart Taylor and the Blues manager said he understood the frustrations.

“Yes, unbelievable fanbase it’s got,” he said. “I’ve said it before, I say it every week, they want to see their team win.

“When you’re at a big club you have to take what’s coming, good and bad. One, I’ll never criticise, two, I’ll never get caught up with the whole thing.

“I’ve played in front of ferocious support before where if you made one mistake, dear oh dear, that was a volley.

“For me, it’s not an issue, for the younger guys, we have to stick together. But you couldn’t criticise the Ipswich support at all, never in a million years could you criticise them because of the way they come in their numbers and everything that’s happened over the last few years, months or whatever it is. You could never criticise the support, they’ve been unbelievable for me.”

Regarding Town’s recent form of four wins in 22 games in all competitions, Lambert admitted it’s not good enough for a team chasing promotion.

“Absolutely,” he said. “We’re dominating games, it’s not as if we’re not dominating games. If we’d taken our chances in the last few games we wouldn’t be sitting where we are.

“The chances are getting created, we just have to take the chances. I won’t ever go out there and chastise them and throw them under the bus, as they say, it’s my team, stick with them and we go again next week.

“We cannot change, we have to go and try and win the games. We’ve still got a lot of games, seven at home as we’ve said before but we have to win.”

Similarly, he concedes that Town would now appear to need a long run of wins to get themselves back in the hunt.

"“Yes, we have to go and do it, which is possible because we dominate the games,” he said. “So it is possible it’s not as if we’re not dominating games, that’s not the case.

“Every time we start a game, every time we have the ball we look as if we can score. It’s just that little bit of composure in that box, and hopefully that will come.”

Oxford manager Karl Robinson was delighted with his “amazing” players, who he felt deserved the three points.

“They gave me everything and I’m proud to manage these players. The players showed a great calmness in sticking to the game plan,” he said.

“It’s a big step forward but I’m not getting carried away as it’s always about tomorrow. It’s more than 30 years since we got a result here.

“The difference was the calmness the players showed in sticking to the game plan and in Matty Taylor we have a player who is always going to find space in the box and score.

“It’s hard to break us down once we get a goal ahead and I apologise to the home fans who call me a cheat and I’m sure if they went away to a top team they would want to do the same things to get a result.”


Photo: TWTD



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Carberry added 18:31 - Feb 22
Did that great manager teach him this BS too?
3

Skip73 added 18:33 - Feb 22
Same BS every week. The fact is, the players, management and mentality of the club is simply not good enough.
12

StringerBell added 18:35 - Feb 22
Your ineptitude depresses me Lambert, it really does. Your constant failure is ruining this club.
10

im_marcacus added 18:40 - Feb 22
Lambert is a massive twonk
5

speccybaz added 18:44 - Feb 22
Yawn, yawn! Admittedly he has to appear to be positive but for someone who bangs on about having played for ‘really, really' big clubs and in the Champions League too, he must be able to recognise a team that has no midfield creativity and one that has strikers that cannot win headers and can't score either! He should also recognise what being tactically inept means!
10

tractorboybig added 18:45 - Feb 22
Shut thy gob and walk the walk.........🙏
3

Bluebongo added 18:51 - Feb 22
To sum it up, Oxford were not that good, but they were better than us.
16

im_marcacus added 18:51 - Feb 22
4 wins in 22.. lol, how is anyone on here still defending him?! Making out squad worse than the sum of its parts, when dogdirt agricultural Wycombe are 3rd in the league.. 3/4 of the season gone and we've only beaten 2 teams in the top ten!! Problem with sacking him is that Evans strike rate on picking a manager is sub zero 🥶 Wot a crock of cr*p this club has been turned into. Wake up sleepyheads, it's time to write rude words on your bedsheets and air them on Saturday afternoons, pussyfooting around arguing with each other on here about 6M a year being ‘quite an awful lot of money really' or whether lambert twirled through too many players in October, while we watch something we were once proud of nosedive into the mire of a faceless millionaires corporate tax bodge.
19

MrTown added 18:51 - Feb 22
Same sh*t different week. Talks the talk and all that.

Mick Mills summed up well, this is a place of work, you work at this football club, this isn't a holiday camp, this football club has an air of 'casual' about it.

Collect the cheque.
10

jas0999 added 18:52 - Feb 22
Delusional. Four wins in twenty two in all competitions? Wow. Sacked at any other club.
17

MrTown added 18:53 - Feb 22
Would also take Karl Robinson in a heartbeat by the way. Cracking manager.
7

Suffolkboy added 18:58 - Feb 22
I suppose the passion and emotion simply runs away with the options to express opinion and frustration on this forum ; understood , and with sympathy and empathy !BUT PL is correct – so much is being done the way we'd want but in the most critical areas there's little doubt we ARE lacking !
Technique , self- confidence , calm assessment and execution plainly wanting ,along with perhaps crucial decision making .
One can then look at the individuals and analyse their strengths and shortcomings ,AND assess whether there is any way of effecting improvement , if there's any evidence the players CAN improve OR whether some are simply not up to the tasks ,AND may never be ( for whatever reason ) .
BUT I do believe calm reasoning and analysis is the ONLY way ,and would not , therefore, dispute Paul Lambert's overall presentation ; disappointing for most , but a reasoned and reasonable conclusion .
COYB
-8

multiplescoregasms added 19:00 - Feb 22
Same old tripe Lambert. Do the honourable thing and resign. This season is done, and so are you mate.
13

cooper442 added 19:00 - Feb 22
He won't say a bad thing about the fans as he realises what an easy ride they give him, other fan bases would be chasing him down the road after such an inept display!
10

ThaiBlue added 19:03 - Feb 22
Mr lambert just go your a journeyman with to much of a poor record with ot.
1

TimmyH added 19:06 - Feb 22
Yawn! boring, you're being found out now Paul, any discussion about our poor form since November? no I thought not.
8

Doctor_Earman added 19:20 - Feb 22
ITFC Left Rueing Failure to Sack Lambert in January.
3

Swailsey added 19:23 - Feb 22
Get out of our club.
4

WaltonBlueNaze added 19:24 - Feb 22
Dear, oh dear Paul - you have really had a shocker this season, yes we got off to a flyer but any fan could see that we were not playing that well, then you made some poor decisions regarding the international breaks, then you got complacent around team selection and your stupid rotation system. Your PR worked well at first but now it's so repetitive it's just boring! You have not moved forward at all if all you talk about is the big clubs you use to play for, what don't you ever talk about your managerial successes?? For a lot of fans they wouldn't have ever seen you play football so please move on and out of our club!
9

tractorollson added 19:27 - Feb 22
Worse thing we did was to appoint an ex-scummer! just go
0

billlm added 19:36 - Feb 22
Don't care what he says or you think,I've been here since 71 were shiet
2

Pecker added 20:08 - Feb 22
If they are doing everything that you ask them to, just shows that you know absolutely nothing. Get your coat and get back to Germany to tw@t.
4

Pilgrimblue added 20:16 - Feb 22
Apart from Norwich his stats are rubbish. Possibly the worst manager we've ever had and that includes Hurst.
Just go and leave Mills or Burley to pick up the pieces.
I don't think ME either cares or knows what to do. As has been said PL should have been sacked by now as other clubs wouldn't tolerate such ineptitude.
8

richardpaul added 20:31 - Feb 22
JUST NOT GOOD ENOUGH FROM TOP TO BOTTOM ANOTHER SATURDAY NIGHT ANOTHER FAILURE
3

Felstow1978 added 21:13 - Feb 22
Am I the only one who can't understand a single word of what he's saying?
9


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