Only three home games left this season.
From an entertainment point of view the last three home games have been dreadful. Scunthorpe were a team of “spoilers” who wasted time to slow the tempo of the game and very nearly succeeded in getting a point if it had not been for Connor Wickham’s 92nd minute strike. I could not watch games like that every week. The Barnsley game was not much better but we did get three points again due to a moment of madness by their keeper. The guys who summarise on BBC Suffolk say they can accept games like that provided we get three points. They get paid for watching these games unlike the rest of us who spend our hard earned cash to support the team and turn up to be entertained. The performance against Plymouth was lack lustre with the majority of the players clearly lacking confidence. We gifted them their two goals and their players worked very hard for their manager, Paul Mariner, who received a wonderful and deserved reception when he appeared from the tunnel. Paul Mariner joined Ipswich in October 1976 and became part of the great team that won the FA Cup in 1978 and the UEFA Cup in 1981. He did not make the reunion of that fabulous squad when the North Stand was renamed the Sir Bobby Robson Stand on the 26th September 2009. 
He would have had a lot of “catching up” to do with old friends after the Plymouth game so it is probably understandable that he might have overlooked having a drink with Roy Keane. Why Roy Keane had a public rant about that I cannot understand. Very childish.
I listened to a commentary of the game at Swansea on BBC Welsh Sport which seemed about as entertaining as the Scunthorpe game. The commentators were however very complimentary about the Ipswich work rate and how well they closed the Swansea players down. However there was not a lot of goal mouth action at either end. The commentators made Jamie Peters at left back our best player and also made the observation of how one footed Daryl Murphy is. Do we really want to sign him ? Oh for a Paul Mariner type centre forward, lets hope Connor Wickham signs a contract and makes the grade.
The club is losing money each week which is not surprising with the number of players in the squad. The squad was too big under Jim Magilton and it is just the same under Roy Keane. In 1981 when Ipswich were competing for three trophies, the League, the FA Cup and UEFA Cup, they did it with a squad of 14 players ! In any business wages are the biggest expense item on the trading account. I am sure there will be a major clear out at the end of the season. Ipswich probably need another five points to be sure of staying in the Championship and lets hope they can pick those points up at home in the remaining games against Reading, Doncaster Rovers and Sheffield United and perhaps give us a bit of entertainment.