Fuller Flavour: Ipswich Town win was welcome, but performance left a lot to be desired

Dominic Iorfa battles with Craig Noone during Ipswich Town's 2-0 home win over Bolton on Saturday. Photo: Steve Waller (Image: � Copyright Stephen Waller)

As for the manner of the win, when the chips are down, when you’re on the back of a three-game losing streak in league and cup, does it really matter how you’ve won?

The history books will show that we won 2-0 and that’s all that matters at the end of the day. However, that was about as drab a performance you’re likely to see in a Blues victory anytime this season.

It says a lot that Bolton Wanderers were really poor but in all honesty, not much worse than we were.

Thankfully, we had a Cole Skuse goal, that should give the Dubious Goals Panel something to do for a while, and a fine effort from David McGoldrick to ensure three points were recorded and not one.

Perhaps our win was owed to a change of heart from Blues boss Mick McCarthy.

Remember there was a time when he said the more fans chanted or wanted certain players to play, the less chance this would happen?

Well, talk amongst several of us at half-time seemed to be that Mick should take new loan signing Callum Connolly off and put Bersant Celina on.

OK, this wasn’t a chanted request but Mick must have known that this was on a lot of people’s half-time wish lists and, lo and behold, our wishes were granted.

Did it mean Town were much better after the break? Marginally perhaps and when Celina got on the ball, it did give us something to be remotely enthusiastic about.

But in the main, it was as you were.

I am, of course, very grateful for the win.

I suppose it could easily have been one of those banana skin games against the bottom side who had scored just the four goals and had one of the worst defences in the league to date.

It was job done at the end of the day and sitting fifth in the league is still beyond what many of us might have expected, even at this early stage of the season.

Maybe I’m a bit naïve but I just expected a little more from our performance, although you can’t have it all I’m often led to believe.

One disappointment for the club must be the attendance of 14,164 – our lowest league crowd for 19 years.

Even when we’re winning and in the top five, our crowd figures continue to fall and I’m not blaming anyone who stays away by the way. The damage was done for most long before this season started.

But when the club are reducing matchday tickets and doing away with the additional £2.50 on the day and still seeing this kind of figure, it must be or, at least, should be a concern for them.

Where do the club go from here?

The only possible answer must surely be to see more wins, a continued push for the Championship’s top six and an improved style of play.

And that’s exactly where I come back to my opening paragraph of this column.

Yes, wins are the most important factor, but clearly a large number of fans are concerned about style of performances too.

I fear Portman Road will suffer for a long time with low attendances until there is a dramatic change in how we go about our business.

Away from home is a different matter.

It will be very difficult for example to get much out of leaders, Leeds United on Saturday, but we’ll have a decent following there no doubt and I’m sure all present will not care one bit if we win with a real turgid, backs-to-the wall effort.

You could say that’s the fickle nature of football fans.

Hopefully next Tuesday night with Sunderland providing a bit of a stiffer test than Bolton, it might bring a better home performance out of us.

Those missing fans need to be won back somehow.