Terriers v Tractor Boys (in an old kit)
V

EFL Skybet Championship
Saturday 21 January 2017
Kick Off - 3:00pm
The John Smith's Stadium,
Stadium Way,
Huddersfield,
HD1 6PG

Ok, it's time to get back on that horse that threw a shoe at us last weekend and get back on the Championship points trail.

Barnsley born and maybe mildy miserable Mick McCarthy brings his Tractor Boys up from the back end of nowhere on the East Suffolk Coast on a 400-450 mile 8+ hour round trip to West Yorkshire this weekend to take on Wunderbar Wagbo's Terriers. Mick will be able to pop into the Margaret Thatcher Memorial Coal Museum and maybe even have tea with his mum (if she's still around). That should surely put a smile on his face? Oh, well, 'appen as not then.  

Spot the difference

Wagbo doing a Mick impersonation. Mick doing a Wagbo impersonation



Wagbo as we all know and love him ------------------ Mick as we all know and love him
(Take your pick, he's one of them)

But will Mick stay or will he go after Tuesday night's result?



I hope he stays - this thread will need a big edit otherwise.

Match Info
Town are giving the tickets away at £15-£20 a pop again for adults, cheaper still for kids and owd codgers, so no reason not to be there for those of you that just pop by this site for a read. Now be honest, would you rather go shopping with the other half in a cold and draughty town/city centre or spend ages at the checkouts in a supermarket or shopping centre and spend a fortune on stuff you don't really want or need, or just bring him to the match at these prices and buy him a half-time pie and a bovril? Cheaper than chips and far better than ASDA price if you ask me. Put a smile on their face on Saturday and they might put a smile on yours on Sunday. You know it makes sense and it would be rude not to.  

For those of you heading North to the scenic Pennine hills and valleys for the first time that are looking for directions and somewhere to park or drink - it's all in here  

Ipswich in the Cup (ooh er, missus).  
This journey comes after an age and a half spent on the A Roads of East Anglia and Lincolnshire on Tuesday for their FA Cup 3rd Round replay at Lincoln. A trip they likely didn't need or want but they equalised late in the original match after our old lag Theo Robinson scored twice at theirs in the original tie. The replay was won by Lincoln in the last minute of the tie, in case you missed it, sending a depressed squad and an even more depressed set of fans back home through the night and another 2½-3 hours hours of misery on the A Roads. That's assuming they got away from the ground and out of Lincoln in reasonably quick order. The result probably put a few more of their regular and floating fans off the long journey north to ours this weekend.

Ipswich in the League (here, no ... listen. Titter ye not, they are still doing better than us for the last 3 seasons).
Mick's dour mood won't be helped by them going backwards a bit in the League this season either, after pushing for a play-off spot for most of last season. It's certainly not impressing many of their fans with calls for everyone from their less than popular owner down to most of the squad to resign. At the end of last season they came up 5 points and one place short of our opponents from last week, Wendies. A 10 match run towards the end of the season that brought them 1 win, 6 draws and 3 defeats killed off any play-off hopes that were lingering from the turn of the year. 2 wins in the last 2 games only lifted them from 8th to 7th. Too little too late.

Currently they lie in 14th position, on 34 points and 9 places below Town, who occupy 5th place on 46 points and for once, no longer are we worried about the trap door this season. It's our second lowest position of the season but we won't let that bother us. Mick's sides rarely play what you would call exciting football and rarely are a bagful of goals scored in the games between us, so expect another low scoring affair with them camped in their half and trying to beat us on the break or from a free kick around the box or generally just hoofing it high and long.

They didn't really get that tactic right in the two games against Lincoln.  We know what Mick does and how he does it, it's up to Wagbo and the boys to learn to beat this kind of system and find the onion bag on a more frequent basis. If we can't score goals in this division, we've bugger all chance of doing it in the one above, if and when we ever get close to the Prima Donna League, let alone starting to dream about it. Having said that, they beat Blackburn 3-2 at home last weekend, thus gaining one more point against an even dourer lot than them in one game than we've managed in two. How much time the ball spent on the half-way line waiting for one side or the other to go get it in that game and the previous 0-0 draw in the match at Blackburn isn't recorded in any stats that I can find.  

Ipswich have mainly hovered around or just below mid-table obscurity for most of the season and are currently on one of those win-one-lose-one runs having won their last league game. Trouble is they just lost the Cup match so ..... oh sod it, let's not worry about it, just go beat them Town. They have the second lowest away scoring record in the division with 9 goals. Only Villa on 7 are worse at finding their way to the onion bag on their travels. They've won 1 of their last 4 away league games, 2-3 at Wiggin, scoring a full 3rd of their away goals. The other 3 they lost 2-0 at Brizzle, 2-1 at Brum and 2-1 at QPR. Hint to Wagbo - we might need at least 2 to win this one but we might get away with just 1. 0 isn't an option. I would expect Ipswich to field a much changed side from Lincoln, they may even have a much changed coaching staff, but I hope not.

Town won 0-1 at their's in October and will be looking for a rare double against Ipswich, last achieved in the 1996-97 season when this was League 1. Andy Payton got 2 and Marcus Stewart 1 (wonder what happened to him?) in a 3-1 win at home, Ian Lawson and Payton scoring in the 2-0 win away. By the end of that season Ipswich finished in the top 6 and lost to The Blunts in the Play-off Semi whilst Town finished 20th, just above Sadfud but 8 points above the relegation trap door.

Tractor Boys on Tour
Some of their fans could be making it an overnighter or even a whole long weekend judging by this.


Meanwhile in a lay-by just off the A49, more fans from the Ipswich Supporters Club, Welsh Branch, have also made an eary start.

They might turn back following Tuesday's result however, once they get wind of it.

Town

Well we've been linked with that lad Boyd again


No, not that one (though we could have done with him a few years back to be honest, before he started earning funny money).



This one, from RB Leipzig, coming back from an ACL injury but otherwise apparently scores for fun. Originally this story hit the headlines in Das Bild, the German version of Der Sun just before Christmas, so it must have been true. Journalists from other "respectable" Jairman papers have since been checking their twatter feeds and found his name cropping up again, not that anyone ever, ever recycles anything on twatter, whether true or false. True or false however, he has to be better up front, even with the help of crutches or driving a zimmer frame than The Heff-a-lump and our skipper Hudson are, so might be worth a punt. Who does Wagbo drop to fit him in? Well either a midfielder or one of Kachunga or Wells initially. You can't call either prolific, but it would then maybe give us a potential threat on the bench to bring on that we don't appear to have now. Playing centre backs as centre forwards is not the answer no matter what the question is. He could also go to 3 at the back but we all know how successful that was a Cardiff. Alternatively - what's wrong with a front three that actually looks like a front three? Memories of Kindon, Robins and Fletcher anyone?

Could we have matched the transfer fee that Wendies paid for Winn(sod)all from Barnsalee? Easily.
Could we match his wages that are apparently nigh on double that fee per season? Now that is what Oggy means by playing in a different League. So many fans seem to look at the transfer fees and think that's all it costs for players and all the players seemingly play for nowt, or at most they all play for about £200/week. Get real will ya? Can we afford a certain Mr. Rhodes at more or less Mr. Winnall's annual wage for just a few months? Well, if you want to give up on the gegenpressing from the front, sure we can - but just about every time we haven't pressed a team this season we've had our arses kicked. On top of that, Mr Rhodes goals came in lumps and bumps for us and, I also suspect, Blackburn. It's mostly feast or famine with him as much as I admire his ability in the box.

Yes his 4 at Wendies donkey's years back got us a point, but his 2,3,4,5 goals in games elsewhere followed weeks on end with barely a goal to be seen and draws by the bagful. Rarely did he score 1 or 2 goals every week on a consistent basis and he's been no different at Boro. Mostly my opinion with a sprinkling of facts in case you want to take me up on the banter and prove me wrong. Average goals per game don't count, sorry. Having said that, Jimmy Krankie, the Boro manager, now has the biggest collection of centre forwards in Europe and still growing apparently, but he only ever plays one up front, so someone's gonna have to leave to get a game let alone get a goal between them.



This could refer to both Town teams too to be honest

Who's gonna play?

Well this was last season's line up - my, oh, my, how quickly things change.  


On our side, way more than half of that lot, in fact almost two thirds (subs included) are either gone-gone or gone on loan or injured. Smith, Whitehead, Hudson, Bunn, Wells and Cranie have a chance of being in the squad. Hogg and Murphy are injured and Coleman is now above him in the pecking order anyway in my opinion. Bojaj is propping up the Football League on loan at Newport, Dempsey's on loan and singing when he's fishing at Fleetwood. Either that or sucking on a Fisherman's Friend or two. Davidson, the whinging Aussie, is on loan somewhere in darkest Europe, hopefully lost in the Black Forest,  but won't ever be back and isn't and won't be missed too much. The rest are scattered to the 4 winds. Other than that, Hr. Recyleman could make any number of changes, as he often does. Jack Payne won't play after Town decided not to contest the ref's ridiculous red card last weekend. We never win appealing against those numpties at the FA/FL appeals fiddlefest anyway so best to just keep the money and move on.


As long as he's not injured, Mooy is first on the team sheet, the rest can just wait in line. Scanz won't be back before Easter if at all this season I reckon, Kasey Palmer is back at Chelski for treatment on his hammies this week, waiting to see on other player niggles from before and after Wendies.

Looking at the Tractor Boys squad, 8 of last years starting 11 are still at the club, including the goalies and the back 4 along with 2 more of the subs. Daryl Murphy was possibly the biggest loss, with the centre forward going to Newcastle for the best part of £3 million. Foley went to Charlton on a free and I wasn't sure where Pringle went at first (using transfermarkt.co.uk for reference) but you all know what happens when you take the lid off the Pringles. According to Wiki, so it must be true, he's now at Both Ends. They've paid about £800k for Adam Webster from Pompey and £600K for Grant Ward from Spurs U21. Otherwise they have a slack handful or two of loans and freebies. If I get any injury news I'll shuffle it in here somewhere if I remember or can be bothered. They recently signed 6' 6" striker Kieffer Moore from Forest Green Rovers for the massive sum of £10K. He'll fit in well with Mick's lump it high and long game. They also signed signed right-back Jordan Spence on a deal until the end of the season. He was released in the Summer by MK Dons.

Otherwise from a few years back,


I think we'll maybe give Big Frankie, Steve Smith and Dick Krzywicki a rest and I can't see John Wark, Mick Mills or Paul Mariner playing for them (and they were mostly too young, apart from Mills, for the match above tho). It's highly unlikely Marcus Stewart will play for either side. It seems likely that Alex Stepney wll be dipping his hands and goalies gloves into Gemma's box for the half-time draw this weekend after Boothy gets him pissed in the pre-match Q&A at Canalside. Not sure what he has to do with this match but it must make sense to someone.

It's also unlikely that Danny Ward from Rotherham will play for either side, after they supposedly turned down a £1 million bid from us, that Wagbo laughed at, and £1.3 million from Mick's employers, which probably didn't even raise a smile on his richter scale or that of the Rotherham board. (Or was that QPR? Did they offer over £2 million? I'm losing track of all this bs transfer news in the Interweb papers). Grant Ward might, however, play for Ipswich and Tommy Smith could be playing for both sides.

Who to watch for the Tractor Boys (if they play)

Top goal scorers are


Tom Lawrence is on loan from Leicester and far and away the star of this currently under achieving side. Mick has said he's not even going to ask Leicester what he would cost to sign as he knows Ipswich can't afford him.

Shots


Discipline


Folks, for those of you complaining about Nahki Wells firing a few blanks, would you rather we signed Freddie? Really? For all those shots, he's scored 2 this season. Wells has 7 from 28, 25 on target (how many pairs of legs at the edge of the box got in the way of those supposedly on target isn't recorded).

They can't both win.

This weekend sees the following teams in the top 3rd or so play each other
Brighton v Wendies
Barnsalee v L666s
Derby v Reading

All other fixtures this weekend below


Statsfest

After taking a two week holiday straight after the New Year my mates at Statto are back with their wonderful website. Hell, since the owner of the site sold it to some rich kids they've had more holidays than me.


Head2Head




Form Table


League Table


   Another fit and proper owner?


Well it's not just    dodgy Eyeties, Arab Banks with no brass and Asians with hoards of dubiously accumulated money to launder that somehow pull the wool over the Football League's eyes. You might remember an incident or two after the Olympics about some English chap (and others) wanted for questioning about some (ahem) resold tickets? Step forward (or rather backwards into the dark shadows) one    Mr. Marcus Evans (see picture at top of thread if his name seems familiar   ). As one Ipswich fan put it this week in the East Anglian Daily Times -  

Quote:If the arrest warrant on the mythical owner is still current perhaps it would be a good idea to take it (his name) off the shirt. Other than the Brasilian police, FIFA, Parliament and the Olympic Committee nobody much cares about Marcus Evans so it would make a refreshing change to see an Ipswich shirt represent Ipswich rather than spivs and touts.

Just in case you missed it.. Some Ipswich fans are now referring to the club as The Touts. Nuff said.  

Let's go boys, 3 points this weekend please to keep up with or get back above (preferably) the noisy neighbours.