589: Kings of Anglia: Smash and drab at Ewood Park

0:08Ross Halls:Hello everybody, it's me Roscoe and welcome to the latest Kings of Anglia, Itteristown podcast on location special once again. The third one in a row, Hull, Oxford, now Blackburn. We're currently recording this in our Premier Inn restaurant. It's called The Time Restaurant. I'm going to be asking the boys very shortly their favourite seasoning. I'm joined by AJ and Stuart Watson as we reflect on a 1-1 draw at Ewood Park. Of course, the infamous Floodgate replay game. I'm going to start with AJ because he's sitting next to me, my friend. How are you? I'm okay. Last night's done. I think that's probably the biggest positive we can take.

0:49We've sat here now at 5 to 12 because it's been a busy old morning. and I hope that we've all roughly had enough sleep, the sleep that we need. But yeah, it's been busy. I don't know how much we're going to enjoy reflecting on last night because obviously, as you mentioned, it's a 1-1 draw and in isolation, that might not be the worst result ever. But when we go through and we dissect that performance above anything else, yeah, that's going to be a more painful task, isn't it? Yes, indeed. as Nirvana plays in the background.

1:23Ross Halls:Yeah, very good song. Yeah, it's a difficult one, Stu, to sort of reflect on. Not a good performance at all. But yeah, on location special once again. We had the Humber Bridge. Now I've had two trips recording this at the Premier Inn. How are you, my friend? You've, of course, got a long drive back, our chauffeur. I'm sure you're not thinking about that right now. But how are you, my friend? And your favourite seasoning?

1:49Stuart Watson:I'm cranky, mate. I'm going to be honest with you I've had about 5 hours sleep I was up till about 3am trying to wrestle with the verdict on that last night they're always difficult ones to do I've talked a lot about timing in this job and tone when we sharpened the pencil a little bit and not going too early but last night was not good enough it really wasn't we'll get into that a bit more now but long journey back still to go other town stuff for us to get our teeth into as well so where do you want to start with last night? What do you want to kick us off with?

2:31Ross Halls:Shall we actually hear from Kieran McKenna first of all and then we'll sort of segue into different things but favourite seasons quickly I just saw time up there I've got to mention, I like a bit of basil, a bit of rosemary I was going to say basil, yeah I'll go basil

2:48Stuart Watson:can we have garlic yeah yeah i'll take some garlic why not you completely threw me i didn't realize that it's time spelt t-h-y-m-e and i was wondering what are you going on about seasoning for i was thinking of sort of time around puns around is it time for right i'm with you now um that's probably where my my frazzled brain is at this morning um

3:12Ross Halls:rosemary continue solid kira mckenna thoughts yeah we snatched a point at the end I think it was a poor performance from us on most aspects I know where we're at as a group but that was way below the level that we've been at tonight to be honest so we need to be really honest and frank about that we've just spoken about that downstairs in a really honest way and where that performance tonight has came from in my opinion we take the moment at the end good composure from a few of the players to set it up. Really good finish from Sindra. I think there's lots of games this year that we've deserved more from the game than what we've got.

3:57Ross Halls:Tonight's one in the other category, so you have to take them as they come. You want it to be a moment in the season that we can look back on fondly, but we need to, and we have, and we will really address the performance tonight because that level isn't going to get us the season that we want, so we know we're not going to hide from that, we're going to take the moment we're not going to hide from the other bit and we know we need to be a lot better OK then, some honest thoughts there from Kieran McKenna, Stu, you spoke to him after the game snatch and grab someone called the police, it's been a robbery, but what we're going to do we're going to discuss a big talking point I don't normally go on social media when the team drops because I'm normally busy trying to get pitch side and stuff, but this time I had a little time to myself having a little look and there was a lot of backlash.

4:46Ross Halls:A lot of people were not happy with it. Five changes. Set a half didn't replace. That wasn't a rotation. Right back did though. Ashley Young coming in for Darnell Furlong and then of course the forward three. How are you feeling about it? Four changes? Forward four. Oh, forward four. Five changes. Sorry, boys. Sorry. But yeah, it's fine. How are you sort of reacting to that when that dropped?

5:11Stuart Watson:Well, I can't say it was a surprise because it's the norm. It's become the norm and we were expecting it. I think I was, I'd gone with furlong in my predicted 11, but did say that I had half an eye on Young coming in because he'd had that cameo at Oxford. And I wondered whether that might be something that happened. I expected Greaves to come back in for Kipre, but he went, as you say, no change there. And I think we all kind of knew that there was going to be mass rotation at the top end of the pitch again. In general, I think people are getting a bit frustrated with the number of changes. I looked at it and I thought, well, Filagene and Sindre hadn't exactly set the world alight at Oxford a few days earlier.

5:58Stuart Watson:So I can see why you'd change the two wide men. Hurst and Nunez had both played Hull and Oxford back to back away from home. You know, a lot of high pressing, certainly in that Oxford in the whole game. so I could see maybe why there'd be some changes there but it's not just this game now it's a wider debate around is this constant chopping and changing it's not doing a lot of good for team chemistry for relationships all over the pitch it kind of makes the argument about well this is a new group that needs time to gel it makes that null and void if you're not giving them that chance to gel the argument was always if you're going to sacrifice all that stuff that I've just mentioned, the upside needs to be that you look fresher, you look more energised, especially in this period of the season when the games are coming thick and fast.

6:58Stuart Watson:That needs to outweigh the negatives. And we're just not seeing it at the moment. It looked anything but a fresh-legged, energised team last night, didn't it?

7:13Stuart Watson:Yeah, as I've kind of said, no excuses really for last night because Blackburn have had a busy schedule. Blackburn had a day less than Ipswich to recover. They played Saturday, Ipswich had played Friday. They were unchanged.

7:29Stuart Watson:What do you reckon? How are you feeling about this kind of squad rotation stuff? Is it time now for a bit more of a core of a team to start to emerge, do you think? I can appreciate it to an extent with the fixture list they've had I can understand it because of the amount of travel because of the fact that you look at you spoke about the the front four two of those players need their minutes managed because of fitness issues and previous injuries um and the fact that we all sat here watching the Oxford game and beforehand and I think I assume you you felt the same way that was the strongest team Ipswich could put out and they lost 2-1 at Oxford in a performance that wasn't good enough.

8:12So the reaction to that is, right, let's try and give some other players opportunities. And they weren't able to take those either last night. So it's about finding the balance, isn't it? And the balance were nowhere near to that of saying, well, player X hasn't played well in this game. Maybe we just need to keep giving him the opportunities to improve and keep learning with his teammates rather than saying, you've been poor, out you get. Or you played last time, you're not going to play this time. there does come a point where you have to settle, don't you?

8:43Stuart Watson:For me, I've got no problem if you don't perform in the previous game and you've built a squad that supposedly has this great depth and like-for-like quality, then somebody else gets their chance. And as you say, they lost at Oxford. If you can't make changes after losing at Oxford, after a quick turnaround, then when can you? The ones that I have issue with is when players have played well. You know, Greaves has played well in his last two starts and then drops out off the back of him. Darnell Furlong hasn't done anything wrong. He's been pretty solid. Was there any need really to make changes to the back four again and put Ashley Young in?

9:18Stuart Watson:Is that just because you're going out of your way to try and keep people happy, try and keep people motivated? And it was Kieran McKenna's comments after the game that concerned me most last night, where he said setbacks are knocking these players more than they should be at the moment. And we saw it when they lost at Middlesbrough and then the Charlton game followed. And we've seen it now from Oxford into this one. And he said, it's not just what I saw on the pitch. It's what I saw in training leading up to this. Lost at Oxford. And then, you know, the comment was along the lines of players need to come back in for training, not just to want to do the best for themselves, but to want to do the best for the group, to drive others.

10:00Stuart Watson:And does that sort of, am I reading between the lines too much? But does that hint at a few bruised egos, players coming in, well, no, I'm not starting the next one, and you're not supporting your teammate enough, and you're not getting behind that, right, these are the guys that are going to be playing now on Tuesday night. I've got to keep the standard high. I've got to make them feel good. It's a long, long way from this kind of band of brothers that we knew and love at the moment, where there did seem to be that camaraderie, that sort of all-for-one spirit. we've been saying it for a while, haven't we, that the mood is on a knife edge, the season's on a knife edge.

10:39Stuart Watson:We don't know which way it's going to turn. Is it all going to click? Is it all going to come together? Do they need a bit of time? And we've tried to be as fair as we can with some pretty underwhelming performances. There've been days where, you know, even Oxford, if they take their, you know, wasn't a great performance, but they still created enough chances. Even going back to the Charlton game, if they had more than enough chances in the first half, a lot of these games could have gone a different way could have been a different story last night you know there was nothing absolutely nothing until until virtually the last kick of the

11:13Ross Halls:game yeah um you can imagine ladies and we're not going to be speaking much about the game because um it was bad it was very bad aj um and yeah the first half i can't remember what happened to be honest um the only big thing was azor matasiwa i want to mention that because is he a lucky boy obviously sort of similar situation with jacob greaves in a way it was sort of last man um so it would have been very strange if that was the case he got sent off and then they get a penalty or whatever and they and then yeah and the 80th minute and then yeah but yeah it was always a lucky boy wasn't he yeah he was i mean you say you can't remember what happened in that first half i can't really either the one opportunity i can remember off the top of my head was a cross that landed on the head of azon he flicks it and it goes out for it's going towards a for a throw-in and Leif Davis shepherds it out thinking it's an Ipswich ball, not realising it was Azon's header, which was probably one of a few moments that summed up the night, wasn't it, let's be honest?

12:10Yeah, I think we can, unless you have anything to add, I think we can fast forward to this Matasiwa moment at the end of the first half because it was dire before then. And Ipswich had a couple of moments where they'd been caught out often, and we've seen this actually a few times, from their own set pieces, from their own periods of pressure. this one I believe came from a corner Blackburn clearly done their research, it's Morishita who just kind of peels off as the ball's played over the top, he goes I don't really want to say through on goal but he's away from the back line, he's got Matasiwa chasing him, you've then got Leif Davis who's closing in and this might be where the argument comes in, is he the covering defender, for me he's not close enough to be considered the covering defender Mattesiewa brings him down now this referee, I think it's been pointed out a couple of times this referee sent off a commentary player against Luson last season for almost an identical incident why was this then not given?

13:11it's given as a yellow card is he factoring in the distance? is it the Davis factor? is it that Morishita's not under control of the ball? they're all kind of possibilities but for me I can't see how it's not been given as a red card it ends up as Mattassi was 8th of the season so he's 2 off a 2 match ban already at this point two of which have come at Blackburn in the same game that's been played twice that's so stupid to say isn't it, good lord and yeah overall you're looking at Ipswich being very very fortunate to go into the break with 11 men and it builds up the Blackburn fury. There was very few Blackburn fans in that stadium.

14:0113 ,000 just over was the official number. I think it was considerably lower than that on the night, but that was the first time we really heard some anger and some frustration and some noise. Could that have been? I was hoping, you know what, you got away with one, you frustrated the fans, get up for it now, get back into that dressing room, get a rocket up your backsides. it proved not to be is there any argument to go and say that it should have been a yellow card instead of a red, where do you land with the Matasiwa debate?

14:31Stuart Watson:Instant reaction was red card you can see some of the arguments I hear Kieran McKenna sort of said if there's any sort of debate you don't really want to see games can get spoiled by players getting sent off in the first half and if the referee can err towards not giving a red if possible, but he also concedes if the shoe's on the other foot, you're fuming about that one. So, yeah, I think Ipswich get away with one there. And it led to, I think, maybe my favourite moment of a forgettable night, which is Valerian Ismail's press conference afterwards. His favourite word is clearly disgraceful. He described the EFL decision to replay this game as disgraceful.

15:18Stuart Watson:He described the free kick that led to Wrexham's late equaliser on Saturday as disgraceful. And he called the non-red cards against Azul Matasi were disgraceful. But he came into his post-match cross conference with a sheet of A4 paper, a big list that he brandished, and he was waving it in front of all the cameras. And he went through incident after incident that have gone against Blackburn. Brilliant screenshot online, isn't there? It's great. Yeah, this season. He's not happy. And what last night does do actually is kind of backs up the decision to replay this game. Goals can be scored after the 80th minute.

15:58Stuart Watson:And I know Ipswich were down to 10 and that's what muddied the waters last time around. But Blackburn, as I say, this is the second game in a row they've conceded in stoppage time. I think they've conceded a fair few goals late on. Ipswich were playing really poorly, but moments in football can happen out of nowhere. And obviously that's what happened at the end with the equaliser.

16:18Ross Halls:Yeah it did And also by the way Jacob Grease got a lot of booze When he was warming up Because Once again he got sent off So the Blackburn fans He shouldn't be planned He shouldn't be here But you know Anyway Won't get into that There was changes at half time AJ Which Yeah very rare indeed McKenna I can't remember doing that He's only done that But he introduced that whole Because of an injury That's the only time he's done it When it's been enforced Change What were you thinking When you saw the two changes Of course Jack Taylor Comes off GN2K comes on for him and then Nunez comes on for Rewindy.

16:50Nunez on for Azzon. My thought was good because there were two parts to it. Firstly, they were really bad in the first half. And secondly, if you're making two changes at halftime, that probably means that you've had a go at those players in there and Kieran McKenna sure did and should have had a go at those players because they were so far below the standards in this game. Yeah, so that was kind of the feeling in terms of the changes that were made they made sense i thought that taylor was pretty anonymous in that first half it's some little nice little bits of play but not enough from a role that is going to be really integral in terms of getting ipswich up the pitch which they did on so few occasions and the hope was that key used to given the quality that he has when afforded space is really good would be able to change that and then nunez coming on as i've said before ipswich that creativity they need a creative player to play in that number 10 role um that for me was going to be really important so i'm sort of a pod move up front um in the start of the second half uh but as you've written in the pod notes did not really do uh do a lot i mean in terms of the impact that those two changes had at the interval it basically felt the same to me

18:08Stuart Watson:yeah um we've talked a lot about ipswich subs and that being the the depth and substitution being Ipswich's super strength, it was during the back-to-back promotions. They get to the Premier League, boots on the other foot. Premier League teams with the greater depth did to Ipswich what Ipswich had done to others. They get back in the Championship and we've seen some signs, obviously, with Jack Clark sort of being the poster boy for that, super subs. But in the last couple of games, Oxford out-subbed Ipswich. Their subs made a bigger difference on Friday night. And last night...

18:40Ross Halls:Technically, Sindra came off the edge of score the equal.

18:42Stuart Watson:Yeah, he did, but... We're talking about the passage of... Yeah, in terms... No, you're right. You're right to say that, but it didn't lift things last night. That was a moment out of nowhere. It didn't feel like the subs came on and it built some momentum.

19:05Stuart Watson:Someone said to me before the game, is that potentially the most expensive bench in championship history? When you go through it, you've got Sindra Ivalar-Igheli as the record championship signing. And Nunez,£7.5 million,£10 million, Villagin,£20 million. It's probably about£50 million worth of player that it introduced in that second half.

19:32Stuart Watson:For whatever reason, it's just not clicking at the moment, is it? It's not coming together. I've been thinking a lot I was thinking a lot about this last night and this morning certain players are getting a bit of heat at the moment are the strikers good enough between Hurston and Zon McAteer and Akpom obviously haven't been able to get themselves going at all so far I actually think a couple of areas that I'm going to come back to is I said in the summer that I thought midfield recruitment would make or break things for Ipswich this summer. It's clear to me that they ended up going down the list in terms of who they could sign.

20:18Stuart Watson:Obviously, they went for Hayden Hackney, well publicised. You know, you see Lewis Miley scoring for Newcastle the other night. He was someone on the list. There were several others. It took a while, I think, before Rhodes led back to Cuyusta and they got Nunez. So you could look at that. but you might raise your eyebrows at this, but I actually think left wing, which has been Ipswich's strongest position in terms of goal contributions, clearly between Philogene and Clark, is where they've got themselves in a real muddle, to be honest, because the whole system before was built around the left winger tucking inside, Nathan Broadhead, Leif Davis having the entirety of that left side to bomb up and down.

21:04Stuart Watson:everything sort of pivoted around that that was McKenna Bull by signing Philogene at the second time of asking they wanted Philogene didn't get him signed Jack Clark instead then the opportunity came up in January so they signed Philogene then they've ended up with two traditional left wingers that are talented but don't necessarily fit the system that had been built and now they're having to kind of fudge Leif Davis's role he's playing sort of inverted which doesn't get the best out of his qualities um and everything you know you're not suddenly getting the two number tens effectively that was a big part of things and I think it's just kind of knocked everything off kilter a little bit um thoughts is Sam Smoddick's going to end up being Ipswich Town's answer in the left wing role based on that I mean as well we saw him in the Premier league and that was maybe the system it was the position he played the most and it was maybe the system that got the best out of Ipswich in a lot of ways um I hadn't really thought of it in that way because obviously when you look at it on the surface you've got the best left-sided players in the division by a long way you've got well over 30 goals between them when you look at their last championship campaign but um I mean the balance of the squad and the way it's been built as a whole there are a number of issues and that was probably in fairness it's one that people look past is maybe how it works tactically because it's very easy to look at the numbers isn't it say they've got a squad that has uh four right backs competing you've got uh a left back and no competition because the other one did his ACL in pre-season there's no cover for yeah there's no cover for for Azor Matasiwa that they've gone and and got there's question marks over whether the strikers are good enough things like that but then when you're actually looking at the roles that the players have to play it's not just a case of sign good player to play in position full stop it's also about signing the right players and left wing is definitely actually one when you think about it where as you say they've signed two players that don't then get the best out of the team in a way as good as they are and what that means is you're asking them to take on a slightly different role as well so it doesn't get the best out of them and then you're asking davis who's such an instrumental player 18 assists last time out he's got one so far this season um to then do a different role as well and he's spoken a lot about how difficult he's finding that and still adapting to it enjoying having more time on the ball but you can clearly see that there are issues there um yeah a variety of different kind of problems that have come with with creating the squad but the left wing one probably one until you'd mentioned that i hadn't really thought about

23:49Ross Halls:in that kind of way to be honest yeah a lot of people say about the balance of the team it's just not right and there's a lot of errors as well defensive like a lot of shaky moments in this game which is you know we've seen that this season but I'm getting a bit concerned there's a lot of errors what's that come down to really Stu where's that come from

24:10Stuart Watson:pressure maybe I don't know I thought they'd gone a good way to eradicating that I thought post Charlton the early stages of the season was characterized by um in general defensively quite solid and the xg against was was was pretty good it was moments in games it was suddenly a long ball over the top suddenly um there was a little period where counter attacks were a problem but there were moments in games rather than you know periods of pressure and we kind of said well if they can just cut out those little silly errors um they'll be okay and and they went sort of back to basics after Charlton I thought defensively we get we have the six game unbeaten run um and yeah clean sheets in there and okay it wasn't inspiring I mean the West Brom home game the Hullaway game are kind of examples of that but you go do you know what while they're still finding their feet as an attacking force if they can get that solid base there's enough individual talent in this team and enough strength off the bench to to get results over the line in the short term but every time they take a step forwards it seems to be sort of two back and there's there was always this underlying feeling even though the points tally was ticking along quite nicely and you know the performances just haven't been there we haven't seen a team coming together we have I mean what has Ipswich's best 90 minute performance been this season if you take a step back because managers always tell you and Kieran McKenna is classic of it's not always about points I don't worry about the table it's about you know look after the performance and the results look after themselves what's the best performance been over nine over 90 minutes Sheffield United in that yeah they were terrible and even in that game up until when Ipswich scored that was a really competitive game.

26:05I didn't see the full 90 at Swansea, I guess QPR, but then you look at the QPR game, they score very early on. If they don't get that, how does that game pan out? They're pinned back, also pegged back rather, and then yes, they get what is a comfortable win, but that also has helped by two free kicks, isn't it?

26:21Stuart Watson:Yeah, that was a 50-50 game. Yeah, Swansea is that? I think maybe Swansea. Swansea, but then they're also, I mean, they're basically on the same points as Sheffield and they were terrible. They sat their manager after that game. Norwich is potentially up there but then Norwich were rubbish as well so yeah Norwich are second bottom in the division um when they've been faced with kind of solid mid-table teams or teams that are even above them in the division the performances have either been unconvincing but they've got the job done Hull for example um or Portsmouth where they were the better team but it wasn't like a brilliant performance that one or they've had games like Derby where they're very lucky to snatch it and Birmingham where they were very lucky to snatch it.

27:05Preston, they lost. Other games in October, obviously we talk about Charlton and Borough and then coming into those games where they weren't able to take their opportunities so that automatically can't be considered a good performance when you're drawing 1-1 against Watford or 0-0 against Wrexham. We've spoken as well about that being the perfect time to play Wrexham because they were missing players and the perfect time to play Hull because they were missing players. A good time to play Oxford because they were in poor form and won once at home all season. and then you're kind of boiled down to one or two moments you look at the Swansea game against the poor team wasn't perfect I don't think was it they still conceded a goal in that one you look at the Sheffield United game and and they were probably in that moment one of the worst championship teams we've seen full stop in recent years so this is now the point where we have to put the results out of the way a little bit because we talk about six game unbeaten run technically if you factor in the fact they scored last night it's one defeat in eight but it doesn't feel that way the performances don't reflect that and this is now the point especially after last night where they were so desperately poor that you have to look beyond what they're doing in terms of results in terms of where they are in the league because they're probably fortunate to be where they are unfortunate to have some of the results that they have had, like last night.