Rakes

In the classic Simpsons episode ‘Cape Feare’, a parody of the 1962 film of the same name, after a long stint in prison Sideshow Bob is paroled and resumes his ceaseless quest to murder Bart Simpson. Bob (voiced by Kelsey Grammar) follows the Simpsons to Terror Lake where the FBI has placed the family in the Witness Protection Program.

Sideshow Bob’s pursuit is sophisticated, relentless, fiendishly clever but ultimately ... calamitous. At every turn fresh physical trauma and humiliation awaits him. In one scene Bob, after hiding under the Simpson’s U-Haul for the journey to the lake (hitting every pothole and speed bump as they go), rolls out from under the trailer, battered and bruised. There he encounters a scattering of rakes, perfectly distributed so each step he takes a fresh rake flips up and smashes him in the face.

Between each fresh blow, Bob gives a frustrated sneer, then steps on another rake. Sideshow Bob finds each rake through a combination of choice and fate. Each step he takes is his and his alone but there are so many rakes, he can’t help but stand on one after the other. 

Welcome to Ipswich Town in the Premier League 2024-25, a Sideshow Bob Standing on Infinite Rakes and Getting Smashed in the Face of a season.

Saturday felt like a perfectly rake-infested summary of the whole endeavour. I was already uneasy in the days leading up to the game. Spurs’ poor season and the bullish display at Villa Park had left us all feeling a bit too upbeat. Every home game we’ve approached with confidence has gone disastrously.

I didn’t feel much better at 1.45pm when we saw a Spurs line-up reflecting their recent mini-revival, with reinforcements off their injury list. The best time to play them would have been a few weeks ago. If I’m honest our line-up also seemed a little precipitous. The entirely experimental right side partnership of Ben Godfrey and Jaden Philogene looked unnecessarily bold, especially after deciding that Ben Johnson-Dara O’Shea-Luke Woolfenden was the more defensively robust arrangement in the absence of Axel Tuanzebe the previous Saturday.

Nevertheless, we swarmed over Spurs for the first quarter of an hour. Liam Delap had one well-saved, Jaden improbably crashed the open goal rebound from that into his own team-mate Omari Hutchinson. Delap missed another one-on-one, then arced a superb header onto the bar. Archie Gray looked all at sea trying to contain him. I watched all this unfold with apprehension. We are not the type of side that can afford not to take these kinds of opportunities. Indeed, such was the volume of misses, better teams than us would still be punished for such profligacy.

It wouldn’t take long for the rake handle to come swinging up towards our nose. Ambitious, giddy with our apparent dominance, pushed up high (just as Spurs would have wanted), we lost possession. Hyeung-Min Son pulled wide of Godfrey then Archie Gray swung the ball out to him. Godfrey backed off and backed off, until both players reached the by-line. Son somehow sent both Godfrey and O’Shea in the same direction, leaving him a clear sight on whoever in the penalty area he fancied picking out. Brennan Johnson was the lucky recipient.

I have some sympathy for Ben Godfrey here. Son is an elite player and we ask our right backs to do a lot of one-on-one defending without a lot of assistance. So far, he’s had one other league start, trying and failing to get a handle on Jeremy Doku. Sympathy, yes, but instant replacement for Axel Tuanzebe was the job we hired him for, and Axel handled Son just fine in the reverse fixture and you know he would have done a better job here.

Right back is an area in which we have consistently found difficulties. Tuanzebe has started just 12 games for us, in which we have conceded a respectable 20 goals and 8 of those came away at Liverpool and Man City. In his absences, 34 more have flown in, in 14 matches. As is often the case you cannot prepare squad depth to cover such eventualities, teams that get a lot of injuries simply have to live with being worse.

Is this self-inflicted pain, given Tuanzebe’s injury record? Hard to argue we could have done more recruiting for the role. Our two most experienced Premier League players – Johnson and Godfrey – were both acquired to play there. Godfrey in particular looked like he should be the perfect plug and play replacement for Axel – a top division stalwart with the attributes of a centre back and plenty of prior minutes at right back. It simply hasn’t worked out that way.

We didn’t set out to be so dependent on Tuanzebe but that’s what happened. What we might look back on with less equanimity is acquiring a replacement just as we worked out how to cope without him. With O’Shea starting at right back (and Woolfenden inside him) we conceded just 7 goals in 5 games, despite playing Arsenal and Chelsea in that run. Any combo of Godfrey, Johnson or Harry Clarke starting there has killed us. Three goals per game, including four conceded to West Ham, Brentford, Newcastle and now Spurs.

Godfrey seemed a judicious bit of recruitment that probably works in different circumstances, but accidentally unsolved our resolved problem. It took 8 more minutes for the ball to go back down our right and into the penalty area, where Brennan Johnson stood still and waited for another simple pass and simple goal. Thwack. Blood running from our nose.

We kept going. We usually do. Jack Clarke and Omari Hutchinson combined to get us back into the game. Both are growing into their roles in a way that suggests they’ll be excellent Premier League footballers roughly 3 months too late for us. All to no real avail. Any foolish optimism I carried down to the concourse in search of a half-time cup of coffee was brutally extinguished when I saw the scores. Bournemouth, who have merrily smashed everyone to pieces for months now, were not only losing to Wolves but had somehow contrived to be the third team this season to gift the Wanderers a substantial crack at 10-man opposition. Two of their six wins have come in those circumstances. No team has similarly obliged our boys in blue.

We fixed our defence at half time but were now left vulnerable as we chased the game. Referee Tim Robinson helped Spurs arrest and then flip the momentum of the game with his strange drop ball antics but in truth from the second it turned out Luke Woolfenden’s headed (non-)equaliser was offside it felt like the game was only going one way.

As the game disappeared from sight, we faced the reality of finally “losing touch” with the last straggler amongst the 17 teams that make up the now seemingly eternal Premier League. There was still time for one last blow to our bruised and bloodied body. Jens Cajuste and Kalvin Phillips had edged the midfield battle with Rodrigo Bentancur and Lucas Bergvall, allowing Ipswich significant control in the centre of the park for long periods of the first half and some of the second. As with Julio Enciso against Southampton, their energy and combativity in defeat was a minor comfort, the promise of something different for the games that remain. Like Enciso, first Cajuste, then Phillips, trooped off clutching an injury body part.

The two midfielders going off felt like exactly the kind of thing that has happened to us all season long. We knew we would need players to find their feet quickly this year and for partnerships to develop as soon as possible, injuries have disrupted almost every possible connection. Other than Delap and Hutchinson, it’s hard to point to any connected pair that we’ve managed to see in the same places in more than half our games. Now we’re deep in February trying to fashion an entirely new right-hand side in a vital home game.

I have to confess, I did not predict it would be this hard. I looked at the numbers pre-season and fancied our chances of staying up, as the majority of non-parachute promoted teams had prior to 2024. After that big, yawning chasm of a defeat even when sort of playing well, it would now take a minor miracle for us to avoid being one of the six teams in a row to be relegated immediately after promotion.

Part of me now wants to recant that pre-season faith. Perhaps there were always more obstacles than I imagined. Maybe things have changed forever since Fulham, Nottingham Forest and Bournemouth all successfully deposed established Premier League teams in 2023. £100m or more broadcast payments season after season finally crystallised into something diamond hard and impassable without considerable doses of good fortune that the league just doesn’t give you. Somebody arranges the rakes for you to step on.

In some ways I find that conclusion more depressing than dwelling on our mistakes. There is at least some agency in wondering how many mis-steps we made and how many corrections we needed to survive. Nail the goalkeeper recruitment first time? A little more experience behind Delap? More athleticism in midfield? Did we spend our (historically huge amounts of) cash poorly? Maybe it was all just about finishing the right side of some of those early games and preserving a bit of belief and momentum. How much needs to go right for a club like us to stay up?

Who knows. Whatever it takes, barring something extraordinary the necessary combination of decision-making and good fortune has eluded us. Almost every step has simply been cruel, fresh punishment.

Note: I seem to have finally worked out how to enable comments and likes on this thing. If you do have any feedback it is always gratefully received. Engagement always appreciated as it lets me know people are reading! 

During the game I was frustrated with Jaden Philogene giving the ball away multiple times, but with a bit of distance it felt like he added a lot off the ball and found a lot of good spaces second half. Think he might kick on from here.

Jaden Philogene v Tottenham

Minutes 90

Shots 4

Pass accuracy 19/23 (83%)

Chances created 2

Big chances missed 1

Blocked shots 2

Touches 56

Touches in opposition box 5

Successful dribbles 1/4 (25%)

Passes into final third 5

Cross accuracy 1/5 (20%)

Tackles 1

Clearances 2

Interceptions 3

Recoveries 3

Dribbled past 1

Ground duels won 7/13 (54%)

Fouls 1

Fouled 1