Ipswich Town away Saturday 17th Aug

[SB]

Just went looking at them to see what sort of players they had last season in case they had some good cheap buys for my FF team.

Then found an article on a tactics site about their manager and it went into detail about his styles of seeting teams up the past two season with a detailed look at last season in terms of tactics, formations, off play pressuring and so on.

Was just an interesting read and McKenna comes acorss as quite a progressive manager.

Well done you.

[SB]

Saw this on SkySports

Ipswich Town are ready to make their return to the big time, barely 15 months on from being a League One club. Six new signings have come through the door so far, but manager Kieran McKenna is right to be cautious not to upset the dressing room unity.

His side finished their pre-season campaign with a 1-0 win against Nice last Saturday. The Tractor Boys are known for their high pressing - they were the second-best side in the Championship at winning the ball high and creating attempts at goal from those situations - but they have also been doing their homework on set-pieces.

Axel Tuanzebe notched the only goal from a dead-ball situation, one week on from Jack Taylor having scored the only goal against Bundesliga side Hoffenheim from a set-piece.

Ipswich scored 19 goals from such situations in 2023/24, which was second only to Cardiff City. This route to goal could prove vital for the Premier League newcomers over the next nine months.

McKenna will have learned lessons from previous clubs to have perished having failed to adapt their style to a higher standard.

"There's no doubt about it, I've spoken lots about how we're going to have to try and keep our identity but adapt," he said. "We're not going to be able to open up the game as much every minute of every game pretty much like we did last season."

Greater efficiency with set-plays will be important, but back-to-back clean sheets against teams playing in the Europa League this season will have pleased McKenna, too. Bravery, intensity and aggression are buzzwords of the boss, who has used his friendlies to trial different personnel in different positions.

At times, he has played with a back three, wing-backs and with two No 10s. McKenna felt that steps forward had been made in their final warm-up game, but warned: "The reality is moving from the division we were in to the division we're going to in the space of two years is an incredible jump."

Ipswich are ready to take the next step on their journey.

Pre-season results

July 20: Shakhtar Donetsk 0-1 Ipswich; July 27: Ipswich 1-2 Fortuna Dusseldorf; August 3: Hoffenheim 1-0 Ipswich; August 10: Ipswich 1-0 Nice

[DerKrampus]

--------------- Ali
TAA -- Quansah -- VVD -- Robertson
Gravenberch -- Szoboszlai
------------ Elliott
Salah ------ Jota ------ Diaz

[SB]

--------------- Ali
TAA -- Quansah -- VVD -- Robertson
Gravenberch -- Szoboszlai
------------ Elliott
Salah ------ Jota ------ Diaz

No Timmy or Macca ? Racist

[frank the tank]

Will be an interesting one away to a newly promoted team on opening day. Here we go!!

[BG1973]

Massively tough game. A draw probably likely.

[Pablo]

Massively tough game. A draw probably likely.

Is it?

They had a great home record in the Championship last season and only lost once, so I'd say it will be tricky. But massively tough? I'm not sure.

They were the top scorers in the Championship last season, so they are very attacking. Not sure they will be able to go with that approach as much this season. If they do it will play into our hands somewhat. They do like a high press which worries me as we're still learning to play out from the back.

We are very much an unknown quantity and learning a new style so a draw wouldn't be a total disaster, but I can equally see us scoring 3/4 and winning this one.

[Doc_Piptorious]

Is it?

They had a great home record in the Championship last season and only lost once, so I'd say it will be tricky. But massively tough? I'm not sure.

They were the top scorers in the Championship last season, so they are very attacking. Not sure they will be able to go with that approach as much this season. If they do it will play into our hands somewhat. They do like a high press which worries me as we're still learning to play out from the back.

We are very much an unknown quantity and learning a new style so a draw wouldn't be a total disaster, but I can equally see us scoring 3/4 and winning this one.

I expect them to be tricky and if they can do that using the wingers to press the full backs thing they are meant to excel at, then I expect them to score, but a draw or worse would still be a bad result for us imo.


Away or not, this is the sort of game we should be winning, especially as we have close to a full squad available to us.

[BG1973]

Is it?

They had a great home record in the Championship last season and only lost once, so I'd say it will be tricky. But massively tough? I'm not sure.

They were the top scorers in the Championship last season, so they are very attacking. Not sure they will be able to go with that approach as much this season. If they do it will play into our hands somewhat. They do like a high press which worries me as we're still learning to play out from the back.

We are very much an unknown quantity and learning a new style so a draw wouldn't be a total disaster, but I can equally see us scoring 3/4 and winning this one.

Yes it is. They are a very good side with a manager who has managed to extract the absolute maximum from his players for the past 2 years. They will be fired up far more than a spurs away for example, and we are playing under a new manager with all that brings.

Can we defend better? We're going to need to.

[BigChief]

Yes it is. They are a very good side with a manager who has managed to extract the absolute maximum from his players for the past 2 years. They will be fired up far more than a spurs away for example, and we are playing under a new manager with all that brings.

Can we defend better? We're going to need to.

If they're as good as you say then Slot should go with his most defensive minded back 4. That means Bradley instead of TAA.

[Paul12]

Will we shake the early goalconceded habit?

[Yozza]

Weird - despite being a fan for over 50 years I've a mixture of indifference & ****ting it about Saturday...

Partly because there's been too much football & it just seems to dovetail into last season

A few new signings might have helped to get the blood flowing

& dreading the early kick off against a newly promoted side in a full house

They’ll be well up for it - will we?!

[Angryred]

We will be fine as Ipswich will find out the difference between their level & ours.

[SB]

Yeah the early KO is **** for me too. Picking up a hire car in Watford & driving up to the Midlands to see family so I’ll miss the match.

[Slinky Skills]

My regular stream subscription has gone now ffs. What does everyone use to stream games these days? Any paid for apps I can access directly via my smart TV?

Sent from my SM-S711B using Tapatalk