Fred Again

About mid-way through the second half yesterday the ball dropped to Freddie Ladapo in the penalty area. He had no angle to shoot first time, so he trapped the ball and wriggled past his marker. As he wound up a shot, a further three Wimbledon players appeared and again blocked all his routes to goal, as they had done to Ipswich's forwards all afternoon. Fred took a dig anyway and the ball inevitably struck a Wimbledon leg and flew away to safety.

This was followed by a flurry of insults from some of the supporters behind the goal. "FUCK OFF FREDDIE". "GET OUT OF OUR CLUB".

In truth there wasn’t a lot else Ladapo could have done in that situation. Sometimes mashing the shoot button and crossing your fingers is the highest percentage move. And sometimes giving a player grief for something fairly innocuous is a displacement activity. A general howl of rage about the state of things rather than a specific critique of the thing that literally just happened. “FUCK OFF THE GENERAL SITUATION WHERE WE COULDN’T RECRUIT ANOTHER STRIKER IN THE SUMMER AND THUS GEORGE HIRST’S INJURY HAS LEFT US PLAYING A GUY WE SIGNED AS BACKUP FOR LEAGUE ONE” is not quite the right format for a quick yelp of exasperation.

That said, I do think our recent mini-slump in the final third has rather over-fixated on Hirst’s main stand-in. Our recent shot-shyness doesn't begin and end with Freddie Ladapo, whose presence up front would be less of a problem if others around him had stepped up. We’ve had a grand total of zero goals scored by other forwards since George Hirst went down against Leicester, even with a solid hour of football against ten men across two games. The situation with the strikers is what it is and it isn't actually Freddie's fault that he has ultimately ended up spending long periods ever since signing as our only fit and experienced striker.

We know that Ladapo has higher levels than he's shown in the past couple of games, the idea that he has anything to prove against League Two AFC Wimbledon, after 21 goals in all competitions last season, is deeply silly. I maintain that a bit of love, patience and appreciation might have helped him hit those higher levels and could well have enabled us to win a few more league points in the process. He visibly seemed to shrink when the early complaints started against QPR. The current approach of collectively groaning and cursing his name every time he fails to trap a ball certainly isn’t working wonders for our attacking play. This is worth remembering, given that he's likely to remain our main option up top for at least one more game and potentially for longer than that.

Bearing that in mind, it’d be great if everyone could acknowledge the situation we’re in, clinging to second place with no other fit central strikers, and do our best to “get behind” rather than “on the back of” Big Fred. This might prove difficult for some of you. Ladapo has long straddled the line between cult hero and scapegoat and if he is the wrong side of it for you (even if he only moved there relatively recently), well, Blue and White Notes would like to help you in your efforts to be a collaborative supporter. So, along those lines, here are my five favourite Ladapo-related happy places to go. Next time you feel the rage rising, just try and bring them to mind and give him an encouraging clap instead:

1. Peterborough United AwayLook, I’m not going to argue that this one was that vital to our promotion challenge (though 2-0 up is famously a “dangerous scoreline”) but I want to start with a show of quality and anyway that week in April is my default happy place. Peterborough had a little spell of pressure after Burns and Chaplin had given us the lead, but Fred put the game to bed. Burns tossed in a cross from deep, Ladapo held off his defender, controlled the ball on his right thigh, swivelled and hooked the ball past Will Norris. Some classic centre forward play.

2. Charlton AwayThe brutal, traumatising conclusion of this one means most of us didn’t re-watched these goals for months, but what should have been Ladapo’s “injury-time winner” was a very beautiful thing. Here we were, bossing a pretty rubbish Charlton team pretty comfortably, 2-0 up, next thing you know we’ve inexplicably coughed up a two goal lead seemingly for no reason at all. Up steps Fred. Morsy fires a neat pass into his feet on the edge of the D. He controls it, feels for his marker, rolls him, buys two yards and fires a pin-point finish into the bottom corner. Precipitous pandemonium in the away end ensues.

3. Portsmouth HomeThis game was far bigger at the time than it felt subsequently. The narrative going into a near top of the table clash was that Ipswich couldn’t win against teams near the top of the division and might be flat track bullies. We bossed Portsmouth but gave them a soft penalty to get back into the game. Cue Freddie Ladapo firing us back into the lead mid-way through the second half. George Edmundson drove down the left, worked it out to Leif Davis, who did the Leif thing of running down the line and finding a perfect cut back. Freddie did the rest, hammering the ball into the top corner with his weaker foot.

4. Morecambe HomeAfter we’d rattled through all those home games in Spring 2023 it felt like they’d all been total walkovers, where the opposition might as well have not turned up at all. But we did actually have to win them and having your centre forward just bury a loose ball in the penalty area after three minutes just wrecks your game plan if you’re Morecambe. A little while later he got Broadhead’s goal contribution account going, sprinting through onto a neat through ball then expertly firing in off the post. Game over, let’s play keep ball and conserve our energy for the next 74 minutes (and add a couple more if we fancy).

5. Cardiff City HomeFred has actually managed to win us three points this season, which was very nice of him and arguably above the call of duty. Neither goal will live long in the memory (although the finish on the first one is good bit of improvisation). In truth he knew very little about the second one, which just crashed in off his face. But both illustrate Ladapo’s strengths, even in this higher division. He makes good runs, he always gets a tonne of shots off, even if he’s not on it and both of those things do ultimately make you a useful competitor, whatever your other shortcomings.

If we see Freddie Ladapo again, I hope you go to these happy places. If AFC Wimbledon was his swansong, well Freddie, you did your bit in our most enjoyable seasons in decades. We will always have Port Vale Away.

Freddie Ladapo 2023-24

Minutes 338

Goals 2 (0.53/90)

xG 3.69 (0.98/90)

xGOT 3.93 (1.05/90)

Shots 17 (4.53/90)

Shots on Target 8 (2.13/90)