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Holy: When Something Goes Wrong You Must Look to Come Back Stronger
Tuesday, 22nd Oct 2019 16:42

Town keeper Tomas Holy is hoping the unexpected defeat at Accrington Stanley on Sunday could prove to be a blessing in disguise for him and his team-mates.

Holy explained: “When something goes wrong you must look to come back stronger, turn bad into good.

“We don’t have to worry any more about losing our unbeaten record, which maybe takes a bit of pressure off.

“Recently we were trying to keep a sixth successive league clean sheet and it would have been a new club record, but we conceded a goal in the win over Tranmere.

“To be fair, the pressure came out of me and I felt freer because of that. Hopefully, Sunday’s game will have the same effect.

“Of course I was looking to keep the run of clean sheets going for as long as possible and of course I was hoping for a win on Sunday but there is not too much to complain about.”

Far from being despondent after their first defeat in 12 league games this season, Holy believes Ipswich can go on to each new heights in the coming months, although he is equally aware that they cannot afford to repeat the display that saw them crash to a 2-0 defeat at the weekend.


Next up for Paul Lambert and his players is tomorrow’s clash with mid-table Rotherham, who were also relegated from the Championship last term and currently have 18 points from 12 games — a run of five wins, three draws and four defeats.

Holy said: “We can still reach another level, definitely, but I also think there are things we have to work on.

"In my opinion I think we could have scored more goals than we have until now and I also think we could have kept more clean sheets.

“Always, always, there are things to work on. We should never be satisfied; as a team we should always be striving to improve in every single area and reach another level. We have to want to learn and we have to want to get better and better all the time.

“Rotherham is a big game for us because we don’t want two defeats in a row. Every game is important for us but the one that follows our first defeat of the season in the league is even more so.

“We don’t want to give our supporters any reason to doubt us. We just want to win both games, Rotherham and then Southend on Saturday, and put what happened at Accrington behind us.”

Asked how different it was for a goalkeeper to line up behind a back four or, as was the case on Sunday at the Wham Stadium, a back three, Holy added: “It’s a good question and it is different, of course it is. It’s a different style but it shouldn’t have to be a problem.

“We practice every single day on how we are going to be playing and the gaffer knows why he might change it from one game to the next.

“Whether it’s 4-3-3, 4-4-2 or 3-5-2, we know why we are playing the system and it shouldn’t be a problem for us.”

A huge smiled opened up on Holy’s face as he turned his attention to his native Czech Republic’s shock defeat of England earlier this month in a Euro 2020 qualifier when they fell behind to Harry Kane’s fifth minute penalty but fought back to quickly level and then clinch a late winner in a dramatic 2-1 victory.

He laughed: “I had both my dad and my uncle with me over here in Ipswich for the weekend and we watched the game at the Punch and Judy pub in town.

“We did shout when we won the game but you beat us 5-0 in the previous game at Wembley so just let me enjoy that one. I didn’t go over the top with the celebrations and I don’t even know if there were Ipswich fans in there.

“For us it was a very good — and much unexpected — result. I enjoyed it very much and maybe we can still qualify for Euro 2020, we’ll see.

“I know some of the coaches and players in the national team. The best club side is Sparta Prague and I know the coaching staff and the goalkeeping coach because I was at the club with them a few years ago.

“Also, the coach, Jaroslav Å ilhavý, brought a lot of players to Slavia Prague from Viktoria Žižkov — he used to play with them and I played with them as well — so basically I now know a lot of the players in the Czech Republic squad — not all of them personally, but most of them.”

Playing in England’s third tier means Holy tends to go below the radar back home but he added: “A lot of people follow me on Facebook, probably more English than Czech Republic, and I try to show the people back home what is happening with me at Ipswich and in English football in general.

“I try to give them some news and I put pictures and videos from my games on my page. I haven’t put the Accrington game on yet — nobody wants to see that. No, I’m not hiding, so I will still put it on there, even if it is a negative. I write the text but I have some friends who do the other bits and pieces for me.”


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