Ipswich 2 - 5 Southampton

Well.....where to start on this one - there had been a number of articles throughout the day from a number of sources that stated Paul Jewell was going to be looking to play 442 for this game tonight after the weekend's defeat at Hull. For what it's worth I thought that a '442' would only work if JET was the second striker - as it becomes an effective 4231.....with JET sitting behind Chopra with 2 wingers.

However, when I saw the team that Jewell had put out I was absolutely amazed - and not in a good way. Yes, he had picked 2 strikers (Chopra and Scotland) but they were backed up by a midfield 4 with no pace, width or attacking intent. This meant that while we had moved from a 451 against Hull to a 442 - in my mind we were now set up in a more defensive formation.

This is where you will notice that my 'hobby horse' is not what formation we use but the split between defensive minded and attacking minded players. The team selected last night left us with a team of 8 defensive minded players (Back 4 and Midfield 4) vs 2 attack minded players (strikers). We were 8D/2A

When the game started, it gave me no pleasure to see that what I thought would happen, happened almost immediately from kick off. Our midfield 4 looked as though a beach towel could have been thrown over them, they were in each others way, no-one had an out-ball or an easy pass so we just invited pressure onto ourselves - and with no-one knowing their role and therefore tracking runners from the midfield they walked through us twice in 12 minutes. Southampton passed the ball quickly and well, and played like what they are - a side full of confidence with players who know what their roles are.

After 12 minutes, when we were 2-0 down Jewell, gave up on the 4 central midfielders experiment. Kennedy dropped to left back, Cresswell pushed onto left midfield. Leadbitter moved across to right midfield as a more orthodox winger.

My question to Jewell here would be....'you know you have got this team wrong, we are 2-0 down - why not make personnel changes'? It wouldn't have been a popular decision for the players who would go off, but if we are looking to operate an orthodox 442, then we need to have at least one but preferably 2 wingers on the pitch.

JET and Lee Martin were on the bench and at this stage I would have swapped Martin for one of Leadbitter, Andrews or Bowyer, and left the other 2 to play centrally with Martin wide on the right - and - swapped JET for either Cresswell or Kennedy, with the other dropping back to left back. This would have set us up as a 442 with wingers, but more importantly shifted the balance from 8D/2A to 6D/4A.

With Leadbitter and Cresswell as the wingers in an orthodox 442 we just became a slightly more solid unit but lacked any real goal threat, other than the odd hopeful ball that fell at someone's feet - this drifted through until half time and with Southampton looking more likely to score, and score they did on the stroke of half time to kill the game off - Jewell had left any changes of personnel too late.

2nd half

At half time, Jewell made two changes. Lee Martin replaced Mark Kennedy, which resulted in Cresswell dropping back to left back and Martin acting as a more advanced winger; JET replaced Jason Scotland and joined Chopra up front.

As the second half started it was clear that Bowyer and Andrews had dropped to a slightly deeper position than they occupied in the first half, and that Leadbitter and Martin had been given explicit instructions to stay high up the pitch and play as out and out wingers with limited defensive responsibilities. While this isn't a role that Leadbitter has ever played (for ITFC anyway) he battled manfully and looked a different player to the passenger in the first half who played as neither a central midfielder or a wide player.

JET played off Michael Chopra and added a touch of class to proceedings, playing in the role he say's is his best position, he didn't let anybody down. He played 'in the hole' and acted as a middle man between the midfield 2 (Bowyer and Andrews) and what was now in places, effectively a front 3 (Leadbitter, Chopra and Martin). He was everywhere in the attacking sense and at the heart of it any time we looked threatening.

Our first goal came after he took down a high ball and fed Chopra who hit the bar, with the ball eventually finding it's way to Andrews to lash in. The second was scored by JET after an almighty and prolonged scramble which started with him picking the ball up on the left hand side. With this we were back in the game and knocking on the door.

Unfortunately a couple of Saints substitutions took away any momentum we had gathered and when Adam Lallana ghosted through a static ITFC defence to add a 4th the game was sealed……the 3 goal deficit had proved to be too much for ITFC. Ipswich had lost their way and a 5th goal in stoppage time was the icing on the cake for the visiting fans.

Overview
Tactics

Paul Jewell got this badly wrong, his starting team baffled everyone, including it seems the players. A 2 goal head start was given to a good Southampton side, and bar a couple of shaky minutes after the goal they didn't look like letting it slide. As a team we defended poorly with no-one following runners until the formation had changed to 442, but until personnel changes were made we were never going to get back into the game - Jewell should have reacted quicker.

Individual players - the BAD

The centre backs were very poor and replacing at least one of them must be a pressing concern before the next match. While Smith was poorer, Delaney is more experienced and playing on his favoured side, and was lucky that the 3rd time he tried to go through the back of a player in the first half was pulled out of at the last second or he would have been having an early bath.

Individual players - the GOOD

JET changed the game when he came on and should have done enough to convince Jewell that he should be playing in his favoured role behind the striker going forwards for home games

What's next?

Peterborough away (Saturday). I think we will revert back to the formation we played on the opening day away from home. The only changes from the Bristol City game should be Andrews in for Kennedy and by default Smith in for Ingimarrson - although there must be a temptation to take Tommy out of the firing line and give Jack Ainsley a game after his impressive performance at Northampton.

I expect us to be too strong for Peterborough and that their attacking play will allow us to use the pace of JET and Martin on the counter attack to create chances for Chopra against a notoriously leaky defence.