Karl Fuller reflects on another Ipswich Town defeat to a top-eight side and why he thinks Town are heading to their usual mid-table spot

Villa was another game against top-eight opposition and another defeat.

These games are certainly pinpointing exactly where we are right now.

In the main, the football is better than last season but there is still that air of predictability about us. Oh, and some shocking defending!

Yes, we have scored a lot of goals, enough to put us into the top five but we cannot keep conceding the way we are as our defence would put us into the bottom five. I could also moan about some decisions by match officials of late but whilst we’re not helping ourselves, it’s pointless looking for help from anywhere else.

That said, I could not see too much wrong with Joe Garner’s disallowed goal on Saturday but we do live in an age where goalkeepers are over-protected.

Certainly last Wednesday night, Glenn Loovens should have been sent off. But then again, we were doing fine against 11 men until we were trying to kill five minutes of injury-time by attempting to keep the ball in the corner rather than going for a killer third.

Those of us that have been around long enough know that we struggle to keep hold of a lead when there are as many as five minutes of injury-time.

I just don’t feel that we’re learning any lessons from any mistakes that we keep making.

Last week, I spoke of this run of difficult games that we’re now on wondering if settling for a point in each game would be good enough.

The last two games have done little to answer that one.

I was very annoyed not to have taken all three from that Wednesday game and would love to have taken a point out of Saturday’s game.

Rather like the recent Cardiff game, I don’t think making so many changes helps us.

Of course, one was enforced with Freddie Sears replacing the injured David McGoldrick and it’s debatable if Myles Kenlock deserved to lose his place.

But no matter how he played last week, he was always going to lose his place again at Villa in my opinion, which doesn’t exactly sit well with me.

But Dominic Iorfa for Jordan Spence and Grant Ward for Bersant Cellina?

Were either of those changes necessary?

I get fed up with hearing about so many games in so many days and the need to rotate. These are trained athletes who really should be able to cope with a game of Football every three days over a two-week period. You can bet your life that there will be no problem with Luke Chambers and Cole Skuse managing ok barring injury or suspension.

We’re heading towards our usual spot in mid-table and tomorrow night, I feel that another game at Derby will assist our journey to that position.

We know what David Nugent’s record is like against us, we know what Tom Lawrence is capable of and in Matej Vydra, we are up against a striker in superlative form at present.

Mind you, we have this astonishingly good record at Pride Park and maybe, just maybe, we’ll pull something out of the hat again.

I was alarmed to hear that Cobbold upper tier season ticket holders have received a letter stating that they are to be moved for the game against Leeds in January.

Apart from absolutely anything else, why would we want to increase the chances of a visiting side winning a game?

Having more of their fans in will give them more vocal support and when we’re already having trouble generating much atmosphere ourselves, the last thing we need is being drowned out even more by visiting fans.

I know the club are looking at pound signs but to increase attendances with more revenue, surely this should be attempted over more than one game and with our own fans.

Looking at initiatives to bring back the stay away fans should be the first point of call.