Ipswich Town 0-2 Everton: Karl Fuller on the Blues

It was one of those miserable afternoons that felt so flat. It certainly went against the grain of what we had experienced in our first three home games.

Is the honeymoon period over? Is it too early to ask if your glass is half full or half empty?

Whilst there is no need to be overly critical, there does have to be some genuine concern if we repeat these last two games any time soon.

The whole afternoon came down to a few factors as to where it all went wrong.

Jack Clarke missed a big early chance (Image: Steve Waller) I feel certain that the atmosphere was affected by the delayed kick-off. Standing around for an additional 15 minutes sucked some energy out of the crowd.

The noise levels never reached the decibels it had in previous games. How much that affected the players, I do not know. But they did not have their twelfth man pushing them on.

If we were hoping for a repeat of the Aston Villa performance, then we were to be highly disappointed.

Going into the game without Axel Tuanzebe was already a huge loss. Add Jacob Greaves to the injury list, and the job became harder. Those two missing games soon is a huge blow.

Starting the game with five of our League One squad had me wondering if a struggle might ensue.

Don't get me wrong. They are fantastic servants to the club. They are players I adore, and I am certainly not writing them off. But the Premier League is an unforgiving beast.

Yes, it was needs-must with our mounting injury list, but the fact that we have now used as many as 26 players in eight games is a contributing factor to our struggles.

Defender Jacob Greaves is out with injury (Image: Ross Halls) We just cannot get any consistency going in our starting line-up to build a cohesive unit.

Three more of our squad from two years ago then came off the bench and in truth, gave us a bit more impetus. But by then, Everton were in second gear.

That brings me on to the Toffees. Their lowly position had us fooled into expecting something out of the game.

They might not be the force they were in the 1980’s, but they are still a club who have been ensconced in the top division for the last 70 years.  They were never going to be the pushover some may have thought they would be.

Then it was a classic example of what the Premier League is about. Jack Clarke missed an excellent opportunity to put us ahead, and then a Wes Burns moment of hesitation minutes later saw us penalised and Everton in front.

Another moment of lapsed concentration saw Everton go further ahead and we had the talking point of VAR overturning the awarding of a penalty.

The VAR review took a long time (Image: Steve Waller) At the time, I did not think it was a foul. I was thinking how livid I would have been had it been given to the opposition. What I could not understand at the time was how long it took to make the final decision.

If those in power are going to take up to three minutes to make their decision, then they are not dealing with clear and obvious.

If it was clear error by Michael Oliver, it should have been corrected much quicker. There was obviously some doubt in the end.

My own post-mortem for the rest of the weekend had me a tad worried for the first time. I am ever the optimist and will always stick right behind the boys.

But the last two performances mixed with the injury list has me thinking about where the first win will come from.

We knew it was not going to be easy and so it is proving. We must stick with it. One positive is that we left the weekend still outside the bottom three. 

Omari Hutchinson made a bit of history for England U21s last week (Image: PA) Finally, congratulations to Omari Hutchinson on his goal for England Under 21’s last week.

He became just the sixth Ipswich player to score for that age group of the Three Lions, and the first since Darren Bent’s goals against Germany in a 2-2 draw at Hull City’s Kingston Communications stadium in March 2005.