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Morsy: We Were Below Par Against a Good Team
Wednesday, 24th Nov 2021 10:18

Skipper Sam Morsy admitted it was a tough night for the Blues who he felt were under par as they were beaten 2-0 at home by new League One leaders Rotherham, but believes that Town's recent displays against other sides in the division's upper reaches have shown that they are now a good team.

Ben Wiles and Shane Ferguson scored in each half for the Millers, who were comfortable for the most part as they claimed the three points.

“I think it was a tough night for us, to be honest, from how well we played against Sunderland. We didn’t play as well tonight,” Morsy said afterwards.

“They’re a good team, they’re good at what they do. The first goal was always going to be important, it’s a good strike, and the second goal was poor from our point of view.

“Then we huffed and we puffed but they defended really well. You have to give credit to them. Obviously we know we have to do better.”

Could Town have done better against what would appear to currently be the best team in the division?

“Absolutely,” the 30-year-old insisted. “I think the performances of late have been really good. I think our last couple of league games, Sunderland, Oxford and Wycombe, have been really good performances, albeit not always getting quite the results we want. Today was below par against a good team.


“But there’s no magic pill, it’s just working hard and trying to come back better against Crewe.”

Morsy knows Town are unlikely to meet sides of the calibre of the Millers every week: “I think they’re probably a little bit similar to Wycombe, but I think against Wycombe we were excellent that night.

‘We weren’t excellent tonight at all and I think teams like that that are really consistent so you have to be at it. They don’t have many below-par days, you have to be at it to beat them and we weren’t quite at it tonight, if I’m honest.”

He says Rotherham’s level shows where Town have to get to, even if the teams’ approaches to the game are very different.

“Obviously they play a completely different style to us, but there’s no right or wrong way about it,” the Egyptian international continued. “They do their style very good, so we have to make our style very good as well.

“The first goal’s a good goal, it can happen, and then the second one is poor from our point of view, and then we didn’t show enough guile to break them down.”

While most of the Rotherham side have been together for a number of seasons, the Blues are still finding their feet to some extent following the summer of change at Portman Road.

Asked whether that was a mitigating factor, Morsy, who joined Town on deadline day from Middlesbrough, said: “Yes, it is but I think we’re fully clicking, to be honest. You could see against Sunderland the way we played, the chances we create. I think we’re a good team now, actually.

“You don’t want to use that one time too much but they are a good team, they’re good at what they do, they’ve been together a while, you can’t deny that you can see how they play.

“And we have to be better, all we can do is focus on ourselves, we’ve played against all the top teams now bar Wigan and I don’t think we’ve played many teams better than us. I think today they were better than us, that hurts me to say that, but that’s the reality.

“We just have to keep improving, keep getting better and hopefully by the time we play them next we’ll be a better team than them.”

Does he still believe Town can be up among the challengers for promotion? “Yes, definitely, it just takes a run, doesn’t it? It just takes a run of a couple of wins and then you’re up there, hopefully starting with Crewe because I do feel the team’s ready, you can see that in glimpses.

“Today was a below-par night, we haven’t had many in the league of late and we just have to bounce back against Crewe.”

He added: “We know at some point we need to [string together a run] and I think now is an opportunity to do it, it’s always an opportunity to do it.

“It’s just hard work really, keep fighting for each other, get that win and try and start some momentum, try and get a winning run together.”

One of the few positives on the night was Morsy avoiding a fifth league booking which would have led to a one-match ban. From now on five bookings no longer lead to a suspension.

“You can’t worry about that too much, to be honest,” he reflected. “If that happens, it happens. It’s not something that’s preying on your mind when you’re out there, whatever the situation is you just have to deal with it.”


Photo: TWTD



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d77sgw added 10:23 - Nov 24
My main worry now is that we're starting to accept this as our level. If you'd told me as a teenager that we would one day be losing at home to Rotheram in the third tier side and then accepting that we'd been 'beaten by the better side' I would have thought you were mad. This is NOT acceptable.
31

BlueBlood90 added 10:27 - Nov 24
There's only been about four games all season where we haven't been below par Samy!
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Monkey_Blue added 10:29 - Nov 24
Below par would suggest a team who isn't mid table. We are an average team in league one. Given what we've spent either we've brought in poor players( cooks fault) or the manager isn't good enough to get them playing to anything like their full ability. I know we've had “gelling” and that's morphed into “work in progress”. If this is work in progress it's like several miles of cones without a worker in site, ie no evidence of work. We may well Bob along mid table.. or even just outside the play-offs, or even sneak into them. Given none of those things would have been acceptable for the last manager who had zero budget why when cooks had every advantage are people still defending him.
16

DavoIPB added 10:36 - Nov 24
What Morsy said is true though. We have matched or been better than the top sides in this league apart from Rotherham tonight. We are a league 1 side who is trying to improve to a higher standard. Agree we do need to get the consistency of Rotherham but don't really want to play like them. Ipswich still played some good passing football despite the overall lack of anything decent in the performance.
-10

muhrensleftfoot added 10:46 - Nov 24
Rotherham are a well organised hard working team, but they're not world beaters. We should be winning these games at Portman Road with our expensively assembled team of "championship" quality players. It just isn't good enough! Did I hear Cook say we should aspire to be like Rotherham in his post match interview? My goodness Sir Bobby must be turning in his grave.
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Monkey_Blue added 10:46 - Nov 24
Last season under cook was one win in four. We've improved to almost a win every 3 games…. And that's still worse by a margin than Lambert ever did in this league with a small budget & players cook said were of poor quality. At some point you have to accept that perhaps cook can't achieve success without Richardson but the opposite isn't true. It's like we've signed the boy band member who can't write, can't sing and can't dance. I could pick out plenty of league one managers who would have us challenging with this squad but wouldn't be the best choice. JFH would get us promoted. The majority of teams in this league couldn't leave out of their starting line up anyone we had on the bench last night… that's how good a hand Cook has been dealt. 😡
14

Radlett_blue added 10:55 - Nov 24
The last 5 league games have shown where Town are. 1 win from 5 against teams in the top 7 places. Not good enough with the resources Cook has been given and the excuses are becoming more painful.
13

BlueInBerks added 11:16 - Nov 24
I don't think El Miz would have faired any worse than Morsey last night and might have sent a few more passes forward rather than sideways
5

BlueInBerks added 11:16 - Nov 24
I don't think El Miz would have faired any worse than Morsey last night and might have sent a few more passes forward rather than sideways
0

BlueInBerks added 11:16 - Nov 24
I don't think El Miz would have faired any worse than Morsey last night and might have sent a few more passes forward rather than sideways
0

BlueInBerks added 11:18 - Nov 24
Apologies for the repetition!
1

Linkboy13 added 11:51 - Nov 24
Can't see how people on here are saying we should be beating teams like Rotherham when we were out classed in every department and they hardly broke sweat. We were led to believe that we were signing championship quality players didn't see it last night. The most frightening thing Rotherham were relegated last season and they are way ahead of us. Could be a lot more ins and outs on the playing front. So people should wake up and smell the coffee we are not as good as we think we are.
18

Dear_oh_Dear added 12:51 - Nov 24
We are not good. We are bang average. The table doesn't lie...
14

Bazza8564 added 13:07 - Nov 24
last night wasn't just about ability, it was just he lack of impetus in the second half and a lack of response to what i hope was a blasting at half time. it feels to me reading these interviews at times that we care infinity more than the players do..
11

Cheshire_Blue added 14:02 - Nov 24
Who is he kidding ? The Rotherham keeper had one save to make and that came from a weak header in the 92nd minute. We may be a good team against poor opposition but when up against teams at the top of the table we fall woefully short. No creativity in the last few games resulting in no goals. We do not look like a team capable of getting in to the top six.
6

ringwoodblue added 14:20 - Nov 24
One of the tangible improvements we can all see this season compared to last was the number of goals we were scoring and chances we were creating but in the last 5 games, that has disappeared altogether and we are back to the worst times of last season in that regard. So that needs sorting out first.

We are still making individual errors and players are switching off. Celina worries me greatly as he's clearly a talented player but has gone missing in most games and delivered very little. He should be terrorising defences in this league but he's not so I put that down to lack of coaching, game plan and effort. He isn't alone in this criticism only Edmundson and Donacien have been playing consistently well.

1

budgieplucker added 16:11 - Nov 24
Formations are not everything, but I was impressed with Rotherham last night, they supposedly lined up 3-1-4-2, which on paper looks a very attacking line-up, but they were very compact and it was difficult to say what their formation was, which is a sign of a good coach. The mere fact that they can field two brutish strikers in Smith and Ladapo gave us real issues. They often dropped deep but remained compact, very athletic, super fit, strong, aggressive, pressed enormously well. Broke with speed and energy.

By contrast our build up could be excused as being Lambertesque, slow side to side awaiting flair players to deliver. Whilst I like Cook, I think the 4-2-3-1 could be his Achilles heel, the dilemma is will a Celina or an Edwards deliver enough to change the course of a game, otherwise a 3-4-3 formation favoured by many teams would give the two wing backs opportunity to play higher (Burns and say Coulson when fit) and play Chaplin or Celina in the Eric Gates role behind two strikers.

Pep, trains 5-5 (5 defensive players and 5 attacking players). Never allowing gaps between the two units of 5, therefore the line-up becomes largely irrelevant as players find and make the space but the movement is alway relevant to the circumstances of the game.
4

runningout added 16:18 - Nov 24
tricky to accept being beat by anyone in any League higher or lower or from any country. If you have the right mindset as a group losing games won't happen. Or it won't happen often. Paul Cook has failed “So far” in getting right mindset across. Our players are blooming brilliant, but do they realise
0

Monkey_Blue added 16:44 - Nov 24
Blues1 is cooks son or cook himself, no one can be so blindly loyal against the evidence.
1

666izzy added 17:00 - Nov 24
If Morsy is correct when he says, the team is fully clicking then we're doomed to playing in this league next season. Rotherham have been up and down like a yo-yo so if we want to go up, and then progress in the Championship, we have to be able to beat them. But they could have played without a goalkeeper last night for all the work that Johansson had to do.
6

jas0999 added 18:03 - Nov 24
With the level of investment we should be able to beat Rotherham at home. We weren't even competitive!
5

sohamblue74 added 18:27 - Nov 24
so bored of this now ITFC players. you are highly paid and massively underperforming. stop talking a good game, and start playing a good game please.
7

jonnysuave added 18:49 - Nov 24
We weren't at the races, it happens. But have the commenters above forgotten how bad it was last year and arguably for the previous 15?

This team are better than the table shows, results will turn our way and we won't be midtable by the end of the season.

I know patience doesn't happen in football any more, but I'm looking forward to the next few years and seeing the steps we take to get where everyone seems to want to be tomorrow.




1

ThaiBlue added 19:31 - Nov 24
Fed up of hearing the same old tosh from diffrent players.cook has 2 go end of he just aint got a clue,journeyman,get rid and the backroom staff hopeless the lot of them.
5

SickParrot added 20:03 - Nov 24
This confirms that the players think they're much better than they really are. We don't have a good team (yet?). Good teams maintain high levels of performance consistently and can often find a way of winning even when they don't play well. We have a team that is sometimes good but whose performance levels go up and down like a yoyo and who can find a way of losing even when we play quite well.
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