By Jack Watson
A scoreline I have not seen in a long time and I am glad I did not go to this one.
Today, Hull fell to a three nil defeat to one of the best sides in the Championship, Ipswich Town. Given that we were unbeaten in eight, beat Leicester at their stadium, which is a brilliant achievement, and sitting in the top six, I had this to be an exciting game of football, but it was the opposite; the side that are now top of the table (as I write) had this game in their hands and there was nothing we could do about it.
I watched this on Ifollow and it allowed me to analyse the game carefully and I have to say, this was one of our weakest performances and matched how we played against Norwich at the start of the season. Ipswich had a plan–we didn’t–they did their homework–clearly, we didn’t–and they worked as a team, who looked desperate to get to the top flight. For us, it was individual play and most players just improvised as the game went on; there was no clear plan. I am very disappointed. Oh, and Ed Sheeran was watching too.
Rosenior made three changes to the starting line-up: Lewie Coyle; Jacob Greaves and Liam Delap came in for Ruben Vinagre; Regan Slater and Sean McLoughlin. That meant our eleven was as follows; Ryan Allsop, in goal; Lewie Coyle, Jacob Greaves, Alfie Jones and Cyrus Christie holding the fort; Jean Seri, Adama Traore and Tyler Morton anchoring the middle and Aaron Connolly, Liam Delap and Jaden Philogene as the front three. There was no Regan Slater at all today and Jason Lockilo, Harry Vaughan and Ozan Tufan are still recovering from injuries. We have a few niggles in the team, which is not good.
The first 45 started atrociously as The Tractors took a very early lead; in the 5th minute, Leif Davies switched the play from the left flank and a dummy from Chaplin allowed Burns to pick up the ball, with heaps of space, and wallop it in from 18-yards out. This was an exquisite team goal and a big warning to us that they mean business.
We did not really do much in this period, save for a half chance from Aaron Connolly in the 16th minute. Liam Delap broke free on the left from a long ball, beat his man, drove into the box and managed to get a slight connection on the ball to tee up Connolly, who did not get a good contact and fizzled it wide.
After this, we did not even get close to the goal and the hosts dominated in every aspect. It was inevitable that they doubled their advantage in the 40th minute. This started from the back from Hladky when he passed it to Harness, who played in Davis and he rolled the ball to Chaplin just inside the D, who expertly curled it into the top-left corner. Our fullbacks should have done a better job at closing him down and putting him off the shot, but they laid back and we went into the second half trailing for the first time this season.
The second period started positively from us and we could have reduced the deficit in the 47th minute; Connolly received the ball in the six-yard box, but failed to get a quick enough turn to make a clean contact with the ball, which went wide of the post. The remainder of the half mirrored that of the first and bad news came in the 58th minute; Coyle had to come off due to another concussion injury.
Then, more devastating news followed as the clock struck 64 minutes; they extended their lead to three. Again, this all started with Hladky at the back as he played it to George Hirst, who showed a turn of pace down the left to cross for Harness to bundle the ball home. I was so tempted to throw a cushion at the TV and I found the rest of the match hard to watch. The only positives to take from this game was, when Sinik came on, he showed some quality and needed more game time and Scott Twine is improving on his set pieces–he had two and one was inches away. To be honest, they could have scored more goals, but, fortunately for us, we just managed to keep it at that.
We were outplayed and like a children's book; easy to read. They really took it to us and the way they play from the back is what we should be doing. I knew it was going to be a struggle, but we made it more difficult than it actually looked; I think we were nervous, out of steam and without some vital players. My brother and I bought tickets for the Millwall away game on Saturday and I really hope we can turn it around.
