Town’s unbeaten home record extends into its fourth month thanks to a battling hard-fought point against Bristol Rovers in a scrappy encounter at the County Ground.
After last weekend’s superb performance against a side who wanted to play a game of football, Town found it tough against a Rovers side who were only interested in stopping Ben Garner’s side from playing and not winning the game themselves.
Town enjoyed a much better first-half performance than in recent home contests and deservedly took the lead after Tyreece Simpson’s superb strike found its way into the bottom corner in front of an ecstatic Town End, but the away side levelled up with 10 minutes of the first half remaining.
Sadly, Town never got going in the second half thanks to a lack of tempo in their attacking play and Rovers’ tactics of slowing the game down whenever possible, the scenes at full-time of Rovers players and fans celebrating their point told the whole story, but sadly 24 hours after Town kicked off at the County Ground, we received more bad news on the loan front.
As Ipswich recalled Tyreece Simpson from his loan spell at Town, taking the tally of first-team players recalled this month to three after the departures of Kaine Kesler Hayden and Romoney Critchlow.
When I read the news on social media my heart sank, as to lose a player of such importance to Ben Garner’s side at a crucial time of the season is a big blow.
I’ve thoroughly enjoyed watching him play at Town over his spell in Wiltshire, and he leaves behind many great moments in a Town shirt.
At times in his first dozen games, the 19-year-old striker did show his naivety and sometimes floated in and out of games too often, but once he got his feet firmly under the table, he didn’t look back.
Simpson leaves Town after making 30 appearances in all competitions, scoring 11 goals, an impressive record for his first spell in professional football, hopefully, he now gets a chance at Portman Road and doesn’t warm their bench or go out on loan to another club in League One or Two as that would be pointless for his development when he was flourishing so much at SN1.
The next stage is somehow finding a replacement and new number nine to take our promotion bid forward, with all eyes now set to be glued to social media until the transfer window slams shut one week today.
Frustratingly the options in the January transfer window won’t be as wide-ranging as they would be during the summer, finding a replacement for such a talented striker in the same mould as Simpson will be very difficult.
But full faith and trust have to be put in Ben Chorley and his scouting team to pick up another striker who can make an impact after our Director of Football delivered such a talented squad for Ben Garner last summer.
But Chorley’s attention will spread elsewhere as he still needs to find another centre-back with options looking light on the ground if and when we pick up injuries and suspensions in that position, he still needs a replacement for Kesler Hayden, if the idea of having him back falls through before the window shuts, and is a deal for Louie Barry on loan from Aston Villa still in the works?
The last week on this transfer window is certainly shaping up to be an exciting one for Town fans and hopefully, we see some new additions, especially a striker who can finish the job brilliantly started by Tyreece Simpson.