Free hit?

I think there is often an assumption that fans of promoted teams get excited by "the big games". That we scour the fixture list in the Summer for the Liverpools, Arsenals and Manchester Cities first of all, excited for our brief moment in the limelight. This isn't really the case, certainly not for me anyway. I wasn't in the queue for tickets at the Etihad in August and I didn't make the trip to Anfield on Saturday.

These games feel to me something like an international break crossed with a particularly humiliating raffle. The former because I find myself just counting days until I can watch a "real football match" again. The latter because beating one of these teams is an incredible feeling but the price paid for those rare moments is going to twenty other games that are frankly degrading.

I can’t even really enjoy watching the special players the opposition bring because I’m so busy hoping they play terribly. You’re there hoping Kevin De Bruyne over-cooks a pass or Mo Salah bunts his shot over the bar, like going to the Opera and hoping Pavarotti has a sore throat.

Our performance on Saturday was largely fine, but the game was over ten minutes before half time. Are you allowed to say it's fine to be 3-0 down before half time for the second game in a row? I suppose in my mind I have a (rational) check list for what gives you a chance of something in these games and feel like we hit the mark with some of them.

Some of them are things you can sort of control by being disciplined and organised:

You need to keep the opposition to a reasonable number of shots, fewer than maybe 15 or so (It was 16 in the end, so tick-ish. Chelsea had 20 digs at goal at Portman Road).

Of these the clear, big chances, should obviously be kept down to a minimum, 4 or less. (It was only 3, so tick that off, Chelsea had 4).

You will need to block a lot of these shots, so your keeper doesn’t have to deal with them, maybe 5 or so. I do sometimes wonder if “shot count” would be a more accurate statistic if you just omitted blocked shots, where the opposition haven’t actually made the space to have an effort at goal. We managed 3 blocks against Liverpool, so not quite enough. It was 8 against Chelsea, which probably explains why their attacking performance felt less threatening, goals aside.

We weren't perfect, but in the round, the defensive performance was within acceptable bounds. The kind that maybe gets you something if your keeper has a 9 out of 10 day, or their forwards need 37 shots at goal to score.

Then there’s a few less controllable things.

Your keeper probably needs to make at least 6 or so saves, a couple of them will need to be very good ones (Walton made 2 stops from 6 shots faced, very much not a tick).

You'll need the opposition to miss at least 1, probably 2 absolute sitters (we somehow contrived to miss one more big chance than Liverpool did, no ticks there).

You need to score first and that probably means taking more or less the first opportunity you get (well, we scored from our 3rd shot, which is a tick I reckon or would have been if that shot hadn’t come in the 90th minute).

You need a referee who lets you play the game you need to play - either by letting you rough the opposition up a bit or by giving you your share of cheap fouls (Michael Salisbury obliged us in neither respect, quite the opposite).

When you don't tick most of those boxes you inevitably lose, no matter whether collectively or individually your team had a good or bad day. Frankly, if you'd told me beforehand that Christian Walton would complete only one full save all game, I'd have assumed far worse than 4-1 would be incoming, though I’m sure being 3-0 up from 8 shots probably reduced Liverpool’s urgency in peppering our goal much more.

Such a long shot are we in these fixtures, you sometimes come to talk of them being "almost a free hit" (although never without the always). You prepare yourself mentally to lose the game and probably lose it badly. Although there's always a nagging voice saying "but, maybe...".

Still, when the game actually unfolds in front of you, you rather unfairly turn back into a stern critic. Gone is the pre-game sympathy with the task confronting the players. I'd have been pleasantly surprised at kick off to learn we were only going to face 16 shots at goal and just 6 on target. I would have thought it unfortunate to concede to the opposition’s 1st shot on target, then again to their 2nd. But each and every goal, I bristled at one or other of our players losing his man, failing to cut a passing lane, getting beat on the dribble or such like.

Where was this free hit I was going to give the players when Szoboszlai ran off Kalvin Phillips, sent Dara O'Shea for a bag of chips, then beat Christian Walton with a low drive with his weaker foot from 20 yards, that wasn't even properly in the corner? Where was it when no-one stopped Gakpo’s cross, Leif Davis got caught under the ball and Walton got beat from a narrow angle? Nowhere. Useless bastards, all of them! No wonder we're doomed!

I suppose it is impossible to switch off. Getting irritated at what unfolds is almost less internally damaging than a kind of passive acceptance. In the end, though I know it to be irrational, the funk I feel after Liverpool and Manchester City cuts no less deep than after losing to Cardiff or Lincoln. Probably worse even because our last little nugget of joy was less recent. Still, part of me knows that whatever the players did or didn’t do on Saturday was more or less irrelevant to what comes next. The skill and mindset required to give yourself a shot at points in these fixtures is just so wildly different to what you need in most fixtures.

Still, it’s over now. At least next week I can get back to my more quotidian crippling anxiety in a game we can actually compete in.