Football: Complacent Town need some forward thinking

IPSWICH TOWN are a team standing still, which, in Premiership terms, means slipping backwards. Enjoyable as their exploits were last season, both in individual games and in overall achievement, they have not yet been able to take the next step forward, as was illustrated by Saturday's disappointing performance and a sixth successive League game without victory.

The days are long gone when any manager with serious ambitions could say, like Bill Shankly in Liverpool's pomp: "Same team as last season". On Saturday, barring one change caused by injury (Mark Venus replacing the absent Titus Bramble), Ipswich fielded the same 10 outfield players who drew at Derby in the final match last May to cement fifth position in the table and a Uefa Cup place. An enforced switch has been made in goal, following Richard Wright's defection to Arsenal, and an equally good replacement unearthed in the Italian Matteo Sereni; but of the five other new recruits - three signed for their European experience, plus two youngsters - only Finidi George has yet started a Premiership game, and against Everton he was dropped.

Having failed to fit in as a second striker alongside Marcus Stewart, the Nigerian made a dazzling home debut against Derby in Ipswich's one victory to date, but has not yet found a role that suits him or the rest of the team. Worse, as the manager, George Burley, admits: "Maybe one or two haven't quite performed the same as last season."

There is no "maybe" about it. In the first half, the Suffolk side were again unrecognisable, hardly putting a passing movement together and repeatedly caught out in defence, whether Everton slung a familiar long ball up to Duncan Ferguson or tried something more subtle via the other strikers, Kevin Campbell and Tomasz Radzinski. Fortunately for the home team, Campbell's finishing did not match his approach play all afternoon; once early on, and three times on the counter as Ipswich improved in the second half, he failed to defeat the excellent Sereni in one-on-ones.

Burley claimed that his team "had 51 crosses", which invited questions not only about who counts them, but of why so few chances resulted. Never a manager to criticise his players in public, he insisted: "We've had a lot of possession without finishing teams off and on another day the breaks will come. To regain the level of last season was always going to be difficult, now expectations are higher."

Everton have not been burdened by expectations for many moons now, which makes life easier. Yet they are chugging along in mid-table and deserved their point, all the more so for having to turn out without their midfield G-force of Thomas Gravesen, Paul Gascoigne and the patriot christened Scotland Gemmill by his dad, Archie. Walter Smith - "trying to get our best players on the pitch" - boldly went for three forwards, before pulling in his horns and finishing the game with four centre backs. "Maybe it's a step down the road," he said in his understated way. Ipswich also need to get moving.

Ipswich Town (4-4-2): Sereni 8; Makin 4 (Wilnis 7, h-t), McGreal 4, Venus 4, Hreidarsson 6; Wright 4 (George 77), Magilton 5, Holland 5, Reuser 7; Armstrong 5, Stewart 5. Substitutes not used: Branagan (gk), Counago, Naylor.

Everton (3-4-3): Gerrard 5; Abel Xavier 5, Weir 6, Pistone 5; Watson 6 (Stubbs 4, 55), Alexandersson 7, Pembridge 6 (Unsworth 5, 67), Naysmith 6; Radzinski 6, Campbell 5, Ferguson 6 (Tal, 85). Substitutes not used: Simonsen (gk), Moore.

Referee: C Wilkes (Gloucester) 6.

Bookings: Everton: Pistone, Abel Xavier.

Man of the match: Sereni.

Attendance: 22,820.

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