They've only gone and done it again.

You can pick and pick all you like, but some things are just beyond comprehension.

So in lieu of spending many more hours attempting to get to the root cause of our fundamental inability to win games, this week's match report comes to you in the form of some ridiculously crude schoolboy drawings that I done.

Prints for your fridge available on request... 

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Dear me, that was all a bit lacklustre wasn’t it? You can’t win them all (or even two in a row most of the time), but in stark contrast to the Derby victory, we looked second-best throughout Monday night’s game. We did manage to create some opportunities for Cody McDonald, and at times hurried the Ipswich defence into some dodgy passes, but that was about it really. Even when we got into good positions, we’d stutter and stumble our way out of them. 

What struck me most was how surprised we seemed by Ipswich’s movement and passing, which given our own tentative start to the game, we were unable to ever really find an answer to. They gave us a right good hiding in those opening 20 minutes that’s for sure.  At least Chopra fannied up every chance he had. I have very little time for him following his antics against us last year. Dives, elbows and non-stop whinging. What a pleasant man he is.

Unsurprisingly the TV blokes tried to make something of the chance Cody had to bring it back to 2-1 just before half time, but well done to Andy Thorn for not letting that influence his assessment; I don’t think that would have made a great deal of difference either. It was one of those games we never really got into. The tempo was slow without the ball, while the usually composed pairing of Keogh and Cranie were panicked in defence, and too many players ahead of them found themselves on the periphery of the action.

We’ve been underpinned by a solid defence so far, but that wasn’t the case on Monday and we were left ambushed on plenty of occasions. With Gael unable to compete against Lee Bowyer, Carl Baker drifting further and further from the action, and David Bell giving a typical '1 good pass followed by 5 bad' performance, our only real resistance lay with Sammy. As against Derby though, he again found himself far too isolated, and quite how we went in only 2-0 down at the break, heaven only knows. 

There was a slight improvement after the interval, with McDonald in particular regularly finding himself in promising positions. This was in keeping with his previous performance, where he wasn’t quite as involved, but was still able to cause the defence problems through his movement. Pretty much every chance he had was on his head, which in the scheme of the match wasn’t the best thing. If that first one had gone in, great, but you could see his confidence started to drop when he missed the next header. It was pretty difficult – a low stoop with minimal reaction time – but this is the guy who scored a crazy amount with his bonce last year, so I’m sure he would have expected to put it away. After that, you could almost see him begging for a nice easy one along the ground. Fernando Torres may beg to differ.

A telling contrast was in the left-back positions. With Carl Baker consistently making sure he is wherever the ball’s not, this inevitably draws defenders with him, leaving Hussey as the obvious option to receive it on the left. Hussey is still learning, meaning he is a frustrating so-n-so, because he sees so much of the ball and really should do a lot better with it. Like the team performance, he was tentative in possession, and most of his crosses lacked any real purpose or direction.

Compare Hussey’s performance with his opposing number Cresswell for Ipswich, and us Cov fans could only sit and wonder what it would be like to have someone who could deliver crosses of his quality, that consistently. I’d like to think Thorn will be really pushing Hussey to work on his delivery having seen what other players in the league are capable of. 

I think it’s that consistency from individuals that eluded us against Ipswich. You might be able to carry a player or two, but there were far too many who didn’t play to the required level for most of the game – and when they did, it was a fleeting contribution. 

They can learn from this though. Biggy's so young, he's going to have off days. Taking him off could give him a little kick up the bum and next time we see him he’ll be the lively bubbly fizzer of the ball that left so many of us cooing in pre-season. Same goes for Cyrus. You could see he was fed up just before he was taken off. I’d hope he can return to the training pitch and be ultra-eager to put things right in the next game.

Cranie, Jutkiewicz, Christie, Biggy, Keogh and even Clingan (although I had him as MotM) can all play far better than they showed in the game. I liked Thorn’s response – a bad night at the office – which I'd hope that's all this was. There’ll be plenty of them this season. We certainly don’t want players who have done well so far this season dwelling on one bad game. 

David Bell on the other hand - well, he should dwell on it. Ever such a lot. Desperately needs to get a bloody grip of himself. A couple of reasonable crosses amongst a whole load of crap is no good to anyone, man.

Back to it lads. Bring on the Royals.

 

 

So, following the impressive win at Ipswich, I was particularly looking forward to the 10 seconds of highlights last night. Even in such a small segment, they managed to say something ridiculous though.

It's all academic now I know, but the twonk of a reporter on the Football League Show said that Jutkiewicz's shot that hit the bar was "definitely NOT over the line".

Odd, because everyone else has said that it definitely was over.

Given the doubt, I took the liberty of taking an extremely low-res photo of the moment.

I defy anyone to argue with that!

God almighty, feels like we're starting the season for the fourth time. 

It's been stop-start. I still don't feel like anyone has really got going (except QPR, who'll probably walk the league now), as every time you get a decent flurry of games, an international break comes wading in and ruins it for everyone.

Now's when we really get going. There are some massive games in the next few weeks, against teams above us. Ipswich are finding their rhythm, and Cardiff are always good.

It's fair to say our quality of football so far has been poor. But somehow we're still picking up points fairly regularly.

I am a bit concerned though, as we can't play like a bunch of sausages for much longer and still get away with it. We always say we prefer results to performances, but there's also something called riding your luck. Always nice. Problem is, it doesn't last forever.

We could really do with forcing the issue and making our own luck.

Right, that's enough of that. Clive's put us ahead against Ipswich, so frankly I've lost all sense of what I was talking about.

I'm also keen to hear more from Dave Bennett, and his views on Lutkiewicz and likkle McJeffrey. 

 

Right, probably about time I let my thoughts be known about this match. I'll just write a list of my musings as they come to me.

1) Yes, Clinton scored a nice goal...but he shouldn't be our first choice striker. I read him say in the paper today "If Forest can rotate, why can't Coventry?"

I'll tell you why Clintonio - it's because the Forest team has developed a style of play and winning mentality over many months that the best teams do. We won 3 in a row (which would normally be classed as the beginning of a winning run) and thought that we were suddenly brilliant, all over again.

Maybe if we'd stuck with a winning team as far as possible, we'd have a mentality and fluency about us by now. Instead, Coleman's still fiddling with the formula, and even when he comes across something that works (Best and Eastwood up front), he tries to be clever and bring you (Clint) back in.

All because he fancies you.

It's been the Clinton Morrison show all season.

2) Following on from this thought, Martin Cranie was playing out of his skin at right-back when we won those 3 games in a row, so shoving him over to left-back is rubbish. Wright did okay in the previous league match, but if you're talking longevity, Cranie is the best right back at the club. You've got to play him there.

3) There is something wrong with our tactics and ability to adjust during the game. We've played 29 games this season (league and cup), and gone ahead in 16 of those. That's a whole load of opportunities to win and progress.

We've won 8 games all season. To me, that's a very poor ratio from winning positions.

We went ahead against Ipswich, and almost immediately went into our shell and seemed scared to go for the win. People who "know" football say that's sensible. I don't think so, I'd say that's unrealistic and a negative mentality. You've got to understand the ebb and flow of a game - when to attack, when to defend. We can't do either it seems. One thing that is for certain; you can't rely on holding teams out for the entire game if you score in the first 10 minutes.

That's ludicrous.

It seems simple logic that if we play well up until we score, it might actually be because we have got something about us when we play our natural game. So why we're constantly trying to curb that and just encourage teams onto us once we do go ahead, I don't know.

4) Substitutions. Christopher, bloody identify when players aren't doing it, and change them.

And this doesn't mean identify them in the 80th minute. It's pot luck if they're going to even get the ball in that time. Give people the chance to make an impact.

Basically, take McIndoe off if he's rubbish again and bring on Carl Baker. He earned a decent crack by showing McIndoe up in the previous game.

5) We can't concentrate for an entire game. It happened against Portsmouth, and the same keeps happening again and again. Right before half-time, right after half-time, right before full-time. There's no professionalism to get the job done and they just switch off too often.

You could see it so clearly on the TV. We scored, and were so pleased with ourselves (lots of high-fiving and inane grinning) we thought it was perfectly okay to forget about shape and concentration. Gunnarsson may not be a right back, but he was an absolute country mile out of position. McPake then decided to commit himself when there was no cover, and the rest was just shocking.

It's all about decisions, and we make some crazy ones sometimes.

6) Coleman embarrassing me with his rant.

Oi, Chris. Why not focus all that rage and anger at the players who can't defend for 10 seconds?

Fact is, we scored after 6 minutes injury time, so your argument is void anyway. I appreciate the passion, but if you can't defend for 10 seconds, you don't deserve any points.

All you've done is deflect from the real issues of the game - bad tactics and our team's lack of professionalism. I bloody hope this is all a front and behind the scenes you're working like you've never worked before to address these problems.

I doubt it though.

All in all - the result was gutting. All the momentum and confidence the players built up in December has probably gone now because of this fiddling and piddling with the formula.

Bloody hell fire.