Town Have Lost But At What Extra Cost?

Town started, as expected, with Joe Garner and Tom Adeyemi in the team, having both recovered from recent injuries.

Jordan Spence was also included and he replaced Dominic Iorfa in the right wing back role for the Blues.

Ipswich began full of verve and commitment and dominated the early exchanges, with some crisp attacking football.

The Tractor Boys were playing with three upfront, so there was no sign of negativity on the part of Town manager Mick McCarthy and Joe Garner was joined by David McGoldrick and Martyn Waghorn in the attacking third.

From the outset the Blues did what supporters wanted and went for the jugular and Jonas Knudsen almost got the breakthrough that Ipswich deserved, when he dispossessed a Norwich defender and from an acute angle on the wing, cut inside and smashed a fierce drive that alluded Canaries keeper Gunn, before hitting the outside of the far post.

The Blues continued to threaten and David McGoldrick should have scored, when he found himself unmarked in the box but only managed to place his header over the bar with the goal gaping.

The first half largely belonged to Town but they had nothing to show for their endeavours and on the break Norwich always looked a real threat.

In the second half, Norwich had much more of the ball and the longer the game went on, the more they started to dominate possession.

The goal, when it came, was the result of another quick break down the right when Stiepermann found Maddison in oceans of space and he diverted the ball with aplomb into the corner of the net, with Town keeper Bartosz Bialkowski motionless.

Ipswich continued to huff and puff but never really looked likely to break the Norwich defence down after the goal, and even the introduction of Freddie Sears and Bersant Celina failed to instil a sense of purpose to proceedings.

Manager Mick McCarthy will be hugely disappointed with the result – especially against our stanchest rivals but not I think the performance, which was once again very good.

Our biggest problem now appears to be our profligacy in front of goal and having averaged two goals per game until recently, we have now fired two consecutive blanks.

And with a tough set of fixtures ahead of us, this defeat won’t do anything to get the stay away fans onside – or indeed make life any easier for our manager.


Frank Weston – Editor of Vital Ipswich