A solid enough start and a comfortable win for the new boss. The second half was great, that was what I expecting from the start but for 45 minutes we were crap. Passive, toothless, lacking in any kind of direction. I can’t remember us even creating a chance. They didn’t create much either, but it was still more than us and they were marginally the better side.
Given how slick we looked for much of pre-season I didn’t see that coming, but I suppose it just highlights the difference in intensity when the real thing starts. Sevilla came over for a gentle kick around last week, whereas Ipswich were enjoying their biggest occasion in over 20 years. There’s the difference.
They had three players booked inside 20 minutes, but it was more down to over-enthusiasm than them being dirty bastards. I don’t think they’re going to be kicking fuck out of teams this year, I just think they were bang up for what was their biggest game in over 20 years.
And according to Slot, we didn’t match them. Their crowd were rabid as you’d expect, but the ref took the wind out of their sails a bit with the yellow cards. Not that he was wrong to do so. Every yellow he gave was pretty clear cut and if anything he was too lenient, as he could - and indeed should - have sent their right winger off for a deliberate handball when he was already on a booking.
I’m actually ok with him not producing a red card but only because of the context of the situation. If you’re officiating a newly promoted side playing their first top flight game in 22 years against one of the best teams in the world, you don’t want to be the guy reducing them to ten men for a couple of relatively soft incidents. I'm not saying that's right, I'm just saying it's understandable.
I know that shouldn’t come into it and officials are not supposed to let things like that affect their judgement, but some of them are actually human beings so if he didn’t want to be the massive arlarse ruining their big day unnecessarily, I can live with that. If he pulls that shit when we’re playing City, United, Arsenal etc then that’s a different matter entirely.
Overall the ref was ok I thought. The crowd were baying for him to even if up with yellow cards for our lads any time they committed even the most innocuous foul, but he didn’t buckle. Not until late on anyway when he booked Gakpo for a little trip. That’s fine though, four more of those and maybe Slot will have to put his Dutch bias to one side and give my Darwin a chance….
Anyway, the first half was shite as we were really passive all over the park and couldn’t create anything. Ipswich were spritely and pressed with energy, but even then this wasn’t a game when it looked like we might struggle. Even when we were doing nothing in the first half there were loads of times when they looked wide open if we’d have just played the right ball, so I was never especially worried about the result. I was just annoyed that we’d looked so flat.
The encouraging thing is that Slot identified what the problem was, dealt with it by letting the players know they needed to basically fight a bit harder, made a big call with a substitution and after that we looked great. The second half performance was genuinely exciting, because some of the football was sensational and gave us a glimpse of what we can hopefully expect when the team is completely up to speed with what he wants.
The fact the first half was so shite points to an issue with the players I think, because we had this for most of last season too. It’s an issue Slot inherited and it’s one he’ll need to fix, because we can’t keep starting games looking so slow and passive. That first half was garbage, we barely even managed a shot.
At least we looked fairly secure at the back and didn’t have too many problems. They had more chances than we did, but it’s not like Alisson was stretched too much. He made a routine save from a Greaves header and then a comfortable stop to deny Hutchinson after a quick counter following one of a number of shite corners from us.
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