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Defended about as well as we could have done today. Stuck to the game plan well, only conceded once and gave ourselves a chance. But had xG of 0.16. We are coming in at xG of less than 1 all too often and are too wasteful/ponderous at times when we do break into good positions. Don’t know what sort of FFP headroom we have but we really need to have a proper go at the top end of the pitch in January.
I've read numerous times we just need a right winger and a striker but that's not really true is it? We need to improve all over the pitch and I imagine it'll be a case of working right to the wire to see who we can get and how much we can improve the squad. Not sure what headroom we have but would think we will max it out. Four new faces wouldn't surprise me.
Do we know what the issue is? We haven't heard any more than a knock have we? Been fit enough for the bench in the last 3 games but not got a minute on the pitch.
You'd normally expect a club in our position to be trying to rush back a player of his calibre who is costing us a large chunk of change to have here. But seems we must be really trying to manage him and get him fully fit behind the scenes?
If we can get him at his best in the second half of the season, that is almost going to be like a new signing for us and should make a big difference.
That's a big difference for me. Over the past two seasons we've been used to being able to switch players around after 65-70 minutes to pick up new energy and impetus. That just isn't happening this season. It's understandable given the relative depth in quality of squad but always feels like we are slowly weakening our team when we make changes at the moment. We are relying on being able to start fast, get ahead in games and then hold out.
Surely he would be absolutely ideal and ticks boxes? We know McKenna really rates him. We know we want another striker. We know Brighton seriously rate our manager and his ability to develop players. We know he's good enough to really add something to/improve our squad. We have a domestic loan spot left, no big spending commitment (like Latte Lath would be).
Those two goals were far too easy. The first one, I wouldn't expect to see in a Sunday league game let alone the Premier league. McKenna must be furious with that. You work all week on a gameplan and then completely shoot yourself in the foot. Although saying that, I thought they were streets better than us and could have scored a couple more.
I know Everton took their foot off the gas towards the end and were happy to sit in, but we looked far more functional when we had a team that looked similar to one we had last season on the pitch.
A fair bit of talk externally on how the promoted teams haven't won yet. Surely the way we've accumulated 4 points is more heartening and positive than had we gone 1W, 1D, 4L given our run of fixtures.
Average for the 5 most recent seasons is 32.4 points. Average of the earlier 5 seasons is 36.6 points but that is skewed by a particularly high total in 02/03. Generally speaking, 35 points is enough to keep you up in 7 of the seasons above. You could argue it has become marginally harder but not sure it is the kind of huge swing a lot want to make out. It has always been hard to stay up as a newly promoted team.
And what a big opportunity he turned down. They are a very good squad packed with quality in depth. The type of squad he'd be licking his lips at given how he likes to play.
For the first 60 mins or so they dominated us in the manner we did teams in L1. But to our credit we hung in there and I thought in the last half hour we gave as good as we got. Defended really well and came home with a fantastic point.
I wonder how much more of him we are going to see in an Ipswich shirt. Feels like he is very much the 25th member of this squad now and was the only fit player not in the squad on Saturday. He's only going to get further away from it once we have players back fit as well.
Any one else got a feeling he may turn out to be absolutely brilliant for us? I really like the cut of his jib - looks to have all the physical and technical qualities to be a solid PL midfielder. Significant international experience with a good side. Earned a move to Napoli 12 months ago, who had just won Serie A in the previous season.
Played in a successful side managed by Will Still that played football with very similar principles to us. Has been picked up twice by Matthew Benham data driven football clubs that rarely get anything wrong (Midtylland and then again by Brentford - who presumably know he is a great character too). And when you consider how careful we've been this summer with recruiting from abroad, we must be really sure too.
So much to like. And probably going under the radar a bit as we signed Kalvin Phillips a few days ago.
You obviously have to financially compete but Man City and Chelsea will be looking at us as a brilliant place to send their players with an eye on getting big fees for them next summer. And the players themselves will see McKenna as the man to get their careers back on track. Two players with an incredible amount of ability - scary what McKenna could do with their potential given how we've seen him improve L1 players and Omari last season. Improving and getting the best out of players is just what he does.
Post game McKenna was pretty clear about wanting "lots" more additions. Now we can debate whether that means 4/5 or 7/8 but do wonder where they are going to come from.
We don't seem keen to move into the overseas market so seems we will predominantly be sticking to the UK, which costs more £ even if you are looking to recruit the best from the Championship.
McKenna has hinted at wanting a bit of Premier League experience - you don't often see loans of established PL players between clubs and there isn't a pool of free agents waiting to be snapped up. So that is going to be permanent transfers. Difficult, expensive deals to do.
I think what I am trying to say basically, is that we are going to need to spend some serious money still, on top of the £56m + add ons we have already spent.
I think our approach to this window is quite interesting. Would be easy to have assumed we might see more changes and money spent defensively to try and tighten up. But this is more proof McKenna almost sees conceding goals as a necessary evil to play with the attacking freedom we do.
Clearly don't plan on changing much and want to spend a good chunk of money upgrading our front 4 options so we can rotate and have 'starters and finishers' without a drop off in quality again.
Broadhead, Chaplin, Burns, Szmodics, Clarke, Omari would be a pretty tantalising 6 to have playing behind the striker. And I am still not convinced we are done yet in the striker department.
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