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Injury Update
Matthew Khan turned an ankle today and is out for 3-4 weeks.
September 25th, 2021
Ipswich(1-2-3, 17th) @ Nottingham Forest(2-1-3, 14th)
Nottingham Forest are picked 18th by the media, so they're expected to relegate before one of the teams that came up out of the Championship. Today though they're even money favorites against us, understandable given our problems.
GK: Capitani
D: Kirkland/Mattle/O'Brien/Heywood
DM: Clifford
M: Hughes/Donnelly/Mills/Jackson
F: Constantino
Khan and Bendtner are out and Chris Bryan is off to play in the U20 World Cup, so today we run a 4-1-4-1 with Clifford as our DMC.
18': defender Veseli with a yellow. No highlights yet at all.
23': They build up on offense but end up settling for a shot from 30 yards away. Capitani turns it over for a corner, which we clear. They recover and build up again... but Clifford makes a steal in defense and we get to set up our own offense.. but they take it away from Donnelly before we can do anything useful at all and that's the end of a very boring highlight.
43': Their ST Popov has it 25 yards out, O'Brien goes for a tackle, misses and Popov has a little space... we do a pretty good job of closing down and he takes a tough shot, Capitani with the save.
HALF: They have 9 shots, 4 on target but 5 from long range. We haven't managed a shot yet. Mattle and Heywood struggling to blend in... but fewer problems in our assistant's report than usual, so maybe that's good.
56': they have a free kick from ~22 yards out, but its sent well wide.
68': After another long stretch with no highlights, our new DR Heywood comes down injured, and he's forced to leave the match immediately. The injury bug is biting us a bit harder this year eh? McKerr is in. At the same time I bring Neil Gordon in at MR and Adagsmar in at ML and push them both forward to AML spots to try to get a bit more offense going here.
74': A highlight opens with Constantino attacking down the left side... the defense is back but he has options. He tries to lay the ball off for Adagsmar, but its blocked and right back to him, Constantino is in the area but deep near the end line out left of the goal... he tries a shot from a very tough angle, and its not even remotely close.
77': McKerr is hurt, but he can stay in.
82': Neil Gordon pushes down the right side, a quick cross into the area near the 6 yard box, Adagsmar is there, wins a header... right at the keeper. He didn't have to move to save it. We had a great shot there, the only clear cut chance of the match by either team.
93': A long highlight that sees each team get a couple shots, try a couple counters... in the final minute of extra time here, we win it from them in defense, the ball is cleared to Adagsmar, Constantino is up ahead and I keep wondering why the hell he doesn't send it forward.. but instead its a long run down the left, and Adagsmar shows a burst of speed I really hadn't seen from him before, he gets deep into the left corner, sends a cross to the 6 yard box, Neil Gordon is there, its a diving header...and its into the right side of the net by the keeper!!!! 1-0
Nottingham Forest 0 : 1 Ipswich
I had totally been ready to accept a 0:0 draw on the road here but we came up with some magic in the final seconds and get a huge win!
Man of the Match: Stuart Kirkland (7.7)
Goal: Gordon (7.3)
Assist: Adagsmar (6.8)
Notables: Mattle (7.1), Donnelly (7.0), Constantino (7.0)
Jackson put up a 6.3 rating before he was subbed out. Mark O'Brien sat with a high 5.x rating and low 6.x most of the match but helps us out late and ends up with a 6.9 rating.
Whew, we needed that!
Injury Update
-- DLR Anthony Heywood is out 2 months with a dislocated shoulder...
-- DR Michael McKerr is out 2-3 weeks with a groin strain.
That win bumps us up to 13th, lets get a couple more going guys and get into the top half and go from there.
Our current list of injuries:
ST Bendtner - 5-7 weeks
ST Khan - 2-3 weeks
ML Burton - 2 weeks
DR McKerr - "unknown"
MR Doran - 3-7 days
DR Heywood - 2 months
I love how the injury problems always seem localized to one or two positions to make it really tough to manage
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