[Archived] Ipswich Town vs. BRFC (Off. match preview)

[Harrier7]

Bowyer sounds like he's seething, rightly so. We were embarrassing. He has himself to blame for some of it though. I've defended Bowyer in the past but there's no question a lot of what went wrong tonight was down to poor team shape and tactics. Subs were irrelevant.

I do take some issue with his suggestion we were the only team who were going to win the match at half time. Not true at all and grossly unfair to Ipswich.

Doesn't sound like he's seething to me - just resigned to it . First time I've heard him, but he doesn't come across as someone who can inspire a demoralised bunch of players.

[Parsonblue]

Simply another dreadful performance from a very average group of players. If Derby were to beat Middlesbrough tonight we will be eight points off the play-offs and eight points off relegation. That just about sums up the present squad. Good enough to stay in this division but nowhere near good enough to go up. The errors are becoming a joke and seem to continue week after week on our travels. As a team we simply can't cope with pressure on the road. Ipswich were no more than average and yet we present them with three goals. Once the ball is put into our box it becomes panic stations with clearances going anywhere and, more often than not, straight to the opposition.

Kean's confidence must be shot to pieces as the errors just continue. He looked very poor last night and that was before the error which presented them with a third goal. He badly needs taking out of the firing line and his confidence rebuilding. He is young enough to get over this slump in form but he needs a rest.

The back four were simply awful. Dann and Hanley were bullied out of it by Nouble and McGoldrick, Spurr had a nightmare and Kane, although decent going forward, struggled defensively. The midfield made no impression because we lacked creativity apart from Cairney - who was our only performer on the night. DJ Campbell played in the hole and seemed to disappear into it whilst Rhodes continued to look isolated and ineffective.

I was disappointed that Gestede didn't get longer because Ipswich showed that route one with a big guy and someone feeding off him works at this level and with our midfield route one seems a better option than watching the ball being passed backwards and sideways before possession is lost.

If this had been a one off you could ignore it but, sadly, this type of performance has been the norm away from home this season.

[Blue n White Rover]

I would love to know the number of away games that we have won over the last 3-4 seasons. Anyone got an accurate figure?

[JonnyBRFC]

Individual mistakes seem to be a theme of our season.. I really feel for Kean with no apparent back-up for him.. is the Sandman available?!

Good news is the games are coming thick and fast, bad news is QPR are next.. could be a real drubbing but hopefully GB gives them both barrels and we come out fighting.

It's another case of the bi-polar nature of this forum win one game - we will make the play offs. Lose one game - we are doomed and going down.

Disappointing result of course, but learn from it and move on.

[Jimmy612]

Doesn't sound like he's seething to me - just resigned to it . First time I've heard him, but he doesn't come across as someone who can inspire a demoralised bunch of players.

Sounded downright rude to me. Hate managers doing that - not the bloody interviewers fault is it.

Anyway, we can all moan as much as we want, I simply cannot see the owners changing it, and even if they did who are they going to bring in? Previous track record suggests another numpty.

I wonder if managers ever ask to take a look at the finances before they accept a job? Or perhaps it might be common knowledge within the industry that 'Blackburn are a ticking time-bomb'

[SoldierMo]

Back to back wins in this division can di wonders for league position only problem is think we have only achived this feat once this season

[FGS5635]

The trouble is alot of these goals are really stupid individual errors and apart from kean it seems to be different players every away game. Bowyers team selection can be debated, but not sure what he can do about individual errors like we are seeing. Once they cross the white line its on the players and some are letting him down badly

You can tell listening to that interview he's done protecting them publicly becasue he is clearly fuming and rightly so.

[T.J.Newton]

As somebody else said, talk is cheap, it's what he does next that counts but Im expecting there to be little change for the next away game.

[den]

It's easy to forget after a little time away from live matches how sobering watching modern day Blackburn Rovers is. I've come back from that match wondering how we're not scrapping in the relegation places, we were that bad. I don't think we created any meaningful chances the entire match, even Jordan's excellently taken goal was once again our star player making something out of nothing. The game also made me realise my friends at Ewood know what they're talking about, and a lot of people on here really don't. .

[Blue blood]

The annoying thing is with playing 2 defensive midfielders we make life more difficult at the back as we don't keep possession. Bowyer should drop cairney as he is useless out wide but our best central midfielder. God help us when he goes in a few weeks

Lowe and Williamson are grafters and nothing else. How we can play any football with these 2 in those positions. I like bowyer and he is still learning but the problem that seems to be showing is he isn't learning from his away selections in particular.

When Evans was fit he played both him and cairney in the centre and he was happy with not defending ott.

2 defensive midfielders isn't a terrible thing away from home, BUT when you play 2 up front - which is effectively what we did with Campbell, then it leaves a massive lack of creativity in the middle of the park. 4-2-3-1 away from home is fine as hopefully when the 3 are in midfield/dropping back you have the creativity to bring more players into the game and keep the ball moving. When there's just two center mids there is always an onus on them to create which Williamson and Lowe are incapable of doing - a bad tactical move. This is made worse because with DJ and Rhodes up front you can't bypass the midfield and knock it long because neither can hold it up. Either way the formation doesn't work. Perhaps as others said, with the new lad holding things up it might, but with the team that was sent out there it was never going to work.

Ipswich drawn 1 lost 2 at home in last 3, Rovers just make it so easy for every home team.

This is the frustrating thing. We can raise our game for "big" teams at home, but the rest of the time we put in performances nowhere near that level. The question is why? Not having a go at our quality (mediocre at best) but the effort and zest seems to be lower in these sort of games.

Overall incredibly frustrating that we seemed to almost stumble on a winning combination bt accident on Saturday when Williamson was ill and for whatever reason haven't or haven't been able to stick with it tonight.

That's not a dig at Williamson who I consider to be the best of our defensive midfielders but we saw at the start of the season that an ultra defensive pairing with no creativity of Lowe and Marrow doesn't work and now exactly the same mistake is being repeated with Lowe and Williamson.

I am also starting to worry about the futures of the excellent Tom Cairnet and Rochina. If Cairney is going to be regularly stuck out and marginalised on the right, would he have any interest in signing permanently? And Rochina who is probably still our most potent attacking threat other than Rhodes is fit again but can't seem to get more than a cameo couple of minutes or so. If those two depart in January we'll be back to square one where we were with Appleton in terms of the side being stripped of any creativity.

Didn't say that though, did I.

Scary thought about Cairney going - that really would leave us very dependent upon Evans in the middle. We'd be once again back to having a real lack of creativity in the center.

As for Rochina I wonder why he isn't playing more. Under Bowyer's first stint as caretaker in particular it looked like the Rhodes-Rochina partnership looked good, and there was early promise this season at Derby too. Not sure why Bowyer hasn't pushed for this more, especially since it's had some success in the past.

As much as i don't like to moan about GB im begining to think the same. He seems at times to make changes for the sake of it. He couldn't wait to throw on Etuhu when he decided to be available, same with Campbell everytime he's remotely available he starts or throws him on. Maybe he's under pressure to do so? It's annoying because he got most things right on Saturday as he's done many times before but then he seems to kean it up often as well. At least he's not tried to gloss things over in his interview this time. About time the whole lot of them got a kick up the jacksie !

I worry if there's a pressure thing on Bowyer regarding certain players. With Kean in the form he's in I'm surprised they haven't accelerated Robbo's rehab to get him ready (well I'm not) I think there's a real pressure not to pick him. Shame as even with mobility problems he's streets ahead of Kean at the moment.

Equally DJ and Etuhu playing so quickly is odd, especially since neither have offered much/anything this season. In light of Rochina not getting game time in particular this is a strange move and wonder if there are clauses in contracts stating they have to be involved?

With each big mistake we see it makes you wonder if Bowyer's the right man for the job. We just don't seem to capitalize on any masterstrokes he makes, which makes me ask the question is he learning as he progresses?

[Bucksrover]

I still back Bowyer. He has come out and said the second half display was 'unacceptable' which is a stronger comment than he has made to date following a bad performance.

I worried when I saw Williams and Lowe on the team sheet, and the fact that we picked 2 little guys with very similar skill sets up-front. I hope Bowyer has a look at what he could have done differently as well as failings in the performance.

I appreciate that Taylor being absent meant there needed to be a change in midfield, but Cairney and Lowe had just played well together at Leeds, so why break up that partnership. As I have said before - I would play Lowe or Williamson, never both.

[rovers11]

Is our squad any worse than Burnleys, Blackpools or Hudds? Not a chance. Has Bowyer had more money to spend than those teams? Yes. The buck stops with the manager. Maybe there are a few bad eggs in the squad but that is no excuse for the gutless away performances that have become the norm. Barnsley won at Brighton last night, we were hammered there the other week. It's a very even league yet we make all home teams look like Bayern Munich.

No more excuses Bowyer.

Have those teams had the instability Rovers have had over the past 3 years? It was a poor game last night but we have to keep things in perspective, we've had 3 years of instability, mismanagement and decline. This is the first year in 3 that we have actually made some progress but we are, of course, still short of being genuine promotion contenders. Bowyer, at last, has us on the right track yet some people want him sacked?!

We are a young team and a team in transition so we are going to get mixed results and individual errors will be made by our inexperienced team. I'd rather a team of young, hungry players that give their all but make mistakes than a team of overpaid, past it players that don't give 100% - i.e. the team we had last season.

With every club, it is a building process and Bowyer has started that building process. He's brought in some good young players with a strong work ethic. These players will get better. Home form is strong with 4 clean sheets out of 5. Away form is dreadful but every manager must focus on getting home form strong first and then work on the away form. We've not suddently gone from a team that is good away before Bowyer took charge to a team that is now terrible away; we've been terrible away from home since Allardyce days. Lets face it, the last 3 years we've been terrible home and away so at least Bowyer is getting to grips with the home form.

We haven't got the balance in the team right yet, particularly away from home. Can't play Willo and Lowe in the same team and must have two wingers. We really missed Taylor last night. DJ is not my cup of tea, I would play Gestede or Rochina if Dunn can't play.

I don't expect miracles and we are not getting miracles. What I wanted to see this season was stability and signs that the club is moving forward rather than backwards and I believe that is what we are getting. Forget promotion because it won't happen this year; top 10 and Bowyer will have done extremely well considering the amount of changes made in the summer and the fact we were relegation fodder last season.

[JAL]

Is our squad any worse than Burnleys, Blackpools or Hudds? Not a chance. Has Bowyer had more money to spend than those teams? Yes. The buck stops with the manager. Maybe there are a few bad eggs in the squad but that is no excuse for the gutless away performances that have become the norm. Barnsley won at Brighton last night, we were hammered there the other week. It's a very even league yet we make all home teams look like Bayern Munich.

No more excuses Bowyer.

Id say its very poor when you've got players like DJ Eastwood Dann Marshall and Lowe in it most definitely.

[DE.]

Have those teams had the instability Rovers have had over the past 3 years? It was a poor game last night but we have to keep things in perspective, we've had 3 years of instability, mismanagement and decline. This is the first year in 3 that we have actually made some progress but we are, of course, still short of being genuine promotion contenders. Bowyer, at last, has us on the right track yet some people want him sacked?!

We are a young team and a team in transition so we are going to get mixed results and individual errors will be made by our inexperienced team. I'd rather a team of young, hungry players that give their all but make mistakes than a team of overpaid, past it players that don't give 100% - i.e. the team we had last season.

With every club, it is a building process and Bowyer has started that building process. He's brought in some good young players with a strong work ethic. These players will get better. Home form is strong with 4 clean sheets out of 5. Away form is dreadful but every manager must focus on getting home form strong first and then work on the away form. We've not suddently gone from a team that is good away before Bowyer took charge to a team that is now terrible away; we've been terrible away from home since Allardyce days. Lets face it, the last 3 years we've been terrible home and away so at least Bowyer is getting to grips with the home form.

We haven't got the balance in the team right yet, particularly away from home. Can't play Willo and Lowe in the same team and must have two wingers. We really missed Taylor last night. DJ is not my cup of tea, I would play Gestede or Rochina if Dunn can't play.

I don't expect miracles and we are not getting miracles. What I wanted to see this season was stability and signs that the club is moving forward rather than backwards and I believe that is what we are getting. Forget promotion because it won't happen this year; top 10 and Bowyer will have done extremely well considering the amount of changes made in the summer and the fact we were relegation fodder last season.

Really good post and for the most part I completely agree. There are some genuine, serious concerns in various areas of the team (mainly goalkeeper and centre midfield) but overall Bowyer is doing well given the players at his disposal. I do think he's getting some things consistently wrong though, which must be addressed going forward. Enough persisting with Jake Kean - it's cruel to keep him in the side at this point. Never play Lowe with another defensive midfielder, it won't work. Ideally don't play Lowe at all but I appreciate circumstances are what they are at present. Don't play DJ behind Rhodes - it doesn't work. And please don't start any game with two DM's flanked by wingers away from home. We haven't got the quality in the team to win in that way.

Our home form is a real positive and something to build on, the issues away come down to a combination of individual player errors (mainly due to lack of talent) and a formation which doesn't suit the team. Solve these problems (the latter considerably easier than the former) and there is room for optimism. More performances like last night though and we'll be nervously looking over our shoulders again come May.

[Majiball]

Have those teams had the instability Rovers have had over the past 3 years? It was a poor game last night but we have to keep things in perspective, we've had 3 years of instability, mismanagement and decline. This is the first year in 3 that we have actually made some progress but we are, of course, still short of being genuine promotion contenders. Bowyer, at last, has us on the right track yet some people want him sacked?!

We are a young team and a team in transition so we are going to get mixed results and individual errors will be made by our inexperienced team. I'd rather a team of young, hungry players that give their all but make mistakes than a team of overpaid, past it players that don't give 100% - i.e. the team we had last season.

With every club, it is a building process and Bowyer has started that building process. He's brought in some good young players with a strong work ethic. These players will get better. Home form is strong with 4 clean sheets out of 5. Away form is dreadful but every manager must focus on getting home form strong first and then work on the away form. We've not suddently gone from a team that is good away before Bowyer took charge to a team that is now terrible away; we've been terrible away from home since Allardyce days. Lets face it, the last 3 years we've been terrible home and away so at least Bowyer is getting to grips with the home form.

We haven't got the balance in the team right yet, particularly away from home. Can't play Willo and Lowe in the same team and must have two wingers. We really missed Taylor last night. DJ is not my cup of tea, I would play Gestede or Rochina if Dunn can't play.

I don't expect miracles and we are not getting miracles. What I wanted to see this season was stability and signs that the club is moving forward rather than backwards and I believe that is what we are getting. Forget promotion because it won't happen this year; top 10 and Bowyer will have done extremely well considering the amount of changes made in the summer and the fact we were relegation fodder last season.

I'm sure most fans would agree with you were we not facing financial ruin if we don't go up this season. Next year will see 3 teams come down on the back of earning more than last years winners, so will have a major advantage over us. We'll most likely be paying out a rather large fine and trawling round the freebies again. Yes he's bought stability and yes it was needed, but stability had to go hand in hand with promotion for me and that's not looking likely. Who then knows what the loons will do if things don't work out, will they stump up more money to keep us ticking over or will they pull the plug? Whilst Gb's doing well for me you have to consider the job in relevance to the clubs context and the context for me dictates promotion this year or we'll be doing a Pompey MKII.

Out of curiosity does anyone know how many times this season we've had players not available for personal reasons? I'm sure we've had a few or them so far and obviously if they are real genuine real reasons that's no issue but I'm sure we've had one or two already and that's rather unusual in itself.

[FGS5635]

We will obviously never know, but you have to think taylors personal reasons must have been strong, as he would have been chomping at the bit to play after the leeds game

[adsfortheblues]

I would love to know the number of away games that we have won over the last 3-4 seasons. Anyone got an accurate figure?

In the past four seasons we have won 11 out of 70 away games (league only). Therefore 15.71%.

[FGS5635]

In the past four seasons we have won 11 out of 70 away games (league only).

Dear god I knew it was bad, but not that bad

[roversR4ever]

Bowyer made a mistake in setup. As has been said before it doesn't work with the two def mids when you have Rhodes and DJ up front. Badly need someone who can hold up play Or link up better between Rhodes and the mids ie Dunn or rochina. The trouble Is its very soon for both especially rochina who I do think is going to take time to get up to full fitness and Dunn cant play to many games or he will be crocked again. By Christmas we should be in a better position if both can avoid injury.

Evans back would also help. Bowyer until then really needs cairney in the middle even for away games. What last night does show is that the teams we are up against simply aren't that great and really we should be a little bit more positive away from home. I have to say I do think with Cairney in the middle and Taylor and Dunn on the pitch we could easily have got something from the game.

The reality was that individual errors last night were poor. Another friend of mine from old uni days who is an Ipswich fan and who was at the game told me how we really gifted the game to them with the errors. Also said you must be really looking forward to the return of Robinson. Reckons our defence doesn't have any confidence in the young keeper. Trouble is I don't think there is any conspiracy with regards Robinsons return. Simply he was always going to need a lot of training time before he was ready to return.

Its in someways been a strange season so far. The pattern seems to be player looks good and some form and then gets injured or isn't available for the next game. Its robbing us of any consistency.

Bowyer got it wrong but his hand is being forced a little as well. Sounds like for what ever reason Taylor wasn't available but if he had been it may have given Bowyer the confidence to have Cairney in the middle. Its too soon for Dunn to play every game. Rochina is not there yet either and its going to take a few weeks I suspect for him to be. There is no doubt in my mind Evans Lowe would have been a much better midfield. Our loanee forward came crocked so maybe it needed a couple of games before he can start.

In theory two weeks time things should be a lot better. Especially if Robinson is back to full fitness then as well.

I genuinely and probably far too optimistically believe if we can have some fortune with player availability (free from injury, not seeing red etc) for the second half of the season then we can make the play offs. After all with all the problems we are still only 5 points off.

It would help if we can secure Cairney for the rest of the season and get rid of Best and Etuhu. I actually think Lowe and Evans would be good enough in midfield if Taylor or Marshall found some form. If its just personal reasons why Taylor was missing and can repeat his from from the Leeds game then it would help. It does worry me though if we cant keep Cairney. For me Williamson is a replacement for Lowe or vice versa. Without Cairney there is no direct replacement for Evans (assuming Evans returns ok to fitness).

Rhodes

Dunn or Rochina

King Evans Lowe Taylor

Spurr Dann Hanley Kane or Henley

Robbo

Isnt a bad team assuming we don't keep Cairney. Cairney Evans would be very good as well if we keep Cairney. The question is will have them fit for any length of time for the second half of the season.

[rovers11]

I'm sure most fans would agree with you were we not facing financial ruin if we don't go up this season. Next year will see 3 teams come down on the back of earning more than last years winners, so will have a major advantage over us. We'll most likely be paying out a rather large fine and trawling round the freebies again. Yes he's bought stability and yes it was needed, but stability had to go hand in hand with promotion for me and that's not looking likely. Who then knows what the loons will do if things don't work out, will they stump up more money to keep us ticking over or will they pull the plug? Whilst Gb's doing well for me you have to consider the job in relevance to the clubs context and the context for me dictates promotion this year or we'll be doing a Pompey MKII.

Out of curiosity does anyone know how many times this season we've had players not available for personal reasons? I'm sure we've had a few or them so far and obviously if they are real genuine real reasons that's no issue but I'm sure we've had one or two already and that's rather unusual in itself.

We've been facing financial ruin for the past 3 years and it hasn't materialised. When we got relegated everyone was saying we face financial ruin yet we broke our transfer record and spent a huge amount of money. Apparently, last season was promotion or bust yet we are still here and spent a decent amount of money on players in the summer. We are, again, in the same situation where people are saying it's promotion or bust this season. It's not, we will still be here this time next season. We will have to shed some high earners but we'll still be here. The FFP could, of course, be a major issue (if it fully materialises). There are ways round the FFP even if the punishments and demands are as severe as they are claiming.

Regardless of who was manager this season, promotion was always going to be an extremely long shot. You have to build a promotion winning team, al la Cardiff, Leicester, Hull etc.

[Majiball]

As I said if they are real reasons no issue but we've not seen so many before this season.

Taylor - Ipswich away

Judge & Marshall - Bournemouth away

And I'm sure there was a couple more but my googlefu isn't strong today. I just find it odd as it's not something we've really seen much of before at Rovers.

[TBTF]

We've been facing financial ruin for the past 3 years and it hasn't materialised. When we got relegated everyone was saying we face financial ruin yet we broke our transfer record and spent a huge amount of money. Apparently, last season was promotion or bust yet we are still here and spent a decent amount of money on players in the summer. We are, again, in the same situation where people are saying it's promotion or bust this season. It's not, we will still be here this time next season. We will have to shed some high earners but we'll still be here. The FFP could, of course, be a major issue (if it fully materialises). There are ways round the FFP even if the punishments and demands are as severe as they are claiming.

Regardless of who was manager this season, promotion was always going to be an extremely long shot. You have to build a promotion winning team, al la Cardiff, Leicester, Hull etc.

Its not just random people on here saying ''promotion or bust this season''. That came from the mouth of our erstwhile managing Director to a room full of people at Ewood including the Press.Presumably he knows what its like to stare into the abyss and if someone as clueless as Shelfie can see it then anyone can-oh unless you live in Pune that is.

[Majiball]

We've been facing financial ruin for the past 3 years and it hasn't materialised. When we got relegated everyone was saying we face financial ruin yet we broke our transfer record and spent a huge amount of money. Apparently, last season was promotion or bust yet we are still here and spent a decent amount of money on players in the summer. We are, again, in the same situation where people are saying it's promotion or bust this season. It's not, we will still be here this time next season. We will have to shed some high earners but we'll still be here. The FFP could, of course, be a major issue (if it fully materialises). There are ways round the FFP even if the punishments and demands are as severe as they are claiming.

Regardless of who was manager this season, promotion was always going to be an extremely long shot. You have to build a promotion winning team, al la Cardiff, Leicester, Hull etc.

So we're not in a financial mess because we broke our transfer record and spent some money? The accounts clearly show we lost 36M last year and didn't go up, you expect the same this year IE no promotion so that will be another 20-25M hole. We'll be some 80M+ in debt at the end of this season they're 3rd full one and you don't consider that a financial catastrophe? What's our income? Whilst there may well be ways round FFP and we're told they're looking into it, again as always with the loons we see no action to reflect those words. It would not take some 6 months for an expert to find a way round it and Venky's to action it, if that was their intent. We won't go up this year and next will be worse as our income will be 8M less and more cut-backs will be made. How can a team challenge those who have just earnt 60M+ when they can't even afford new shelf's?

Many teams come straight down and straight back up. Mackay almost got Cardiff up in his first season losing to Sam in the semi's, Leicester are yet to promoted and Hull did it in one season, so I'm not really seeing the point as clearly you don't always need a season or two to do it.

[Plastic Head]

Bad players make mistakes. Even good players do but bad ones make more.

You could play someone else but maybe they are just as bad or worse?

The problem is that players are making mistakes because they are no good and the replacements are probably worse.

So this means the team (and the squad) is not a good one as is unable to do much better than it has so far.

My judgement on what I have seen is that there are 4/5 worse sides but that's about it.

[Amo]

Equally DJ and Etuhu playing so quickly is odd, especially since neither have offered much/anything this season. In light of Rochina not getting game time in particular this is a strange move and wonder if there are clauses in contracts stating they have to be involved?

Well, he has been out for over three months. Bowyer probably wants to ease him back into the side. Saying that, last night would've been a perfect opportunity for him with Dunn missing, instead of playing DJ F***king Campbell.