In what is destined to be a sell-out at Portman Road next Saturday, we are all awaiting the biggest game for a decade with anxious anticipation.
Mick McCarthy quite likes the idea that most football experts would consider our fiercest rivals to be favourites for the two legged play-off encounter which starts this Saturday.
I quite like the idea too. We may have lost our last four battles with them over the years but our most recent two defeats this term were narrow ones and psychologically the blues will be in much better mental shape this time around I believe.
In the end we were thankful to scrape into the last chance corral but in The Canaries case, they must have been as sick as parrots because they came so close to automatic promotion and did not expect to find themselves here and at Portman Road especially!
Traditionally too this tends to work in our favour. The side that has missed out on those automatic spots often under-performs simply because they feel they should not be there anyway and of course for Town, the way they got there by the skin of their teeth, will make every player even more grateful for another bite of the cherry!
The games will be close that’s for sure and I would have preferred Town playing the second leg at home because it can be a great advantage.
What we must strive to do is to go to Carrow Road with at least a two goal advantage and we have the strike force to get an away goal if need be – although I am not convinced our defence is good enough to keep a side like Norwich at bay for too long sadly.
Skeptics will say we have no chance but now we have arrived at the knock-out stage I feel sure that what ever team that the manager picks on the day, will play as if their lives depended upon it!
The countdown has indeed begun on the match of the decade and Norwich will know that they will have to play with their hearts as well as their heads, to win through.
Ipswich Town have achieved their aim already, which was to make the play-off’s and no one can take that away from them.
The Tractor Boys will go into this one with a nothing to lose attitude and it promises to be a Battle Royal of both minds and souls!
F.W.
