Manager Mick McCarthy was delighted with his side’s 3-0 home victory over Leeds but admitted that the visitors were the better side until Tom Lees’s red card just after the half hour.

McCarthy said: “I’m pleased because it’s the first time I can remember that we’ve actually got away with an ordinary performance because it was by us. Certainly for 30 minutes Leeds were better than us.

“But I remember going to Leeds and playing well and coming away having been beaten. And I remember going to Bristol City and playing really well and being beaten, and I remember going to Nottingham Forest and having two sent off and we should have had something.

“It’s our turn today, we had a bit of good fortune. The red card changed the game, I don’t think there can be any argument about the red card, it was a sending off in my view. It changed the game and we were the beneficiaries of a decision.”

The Blues boss was pleased with his side’s workrate: “When you’re under the cosh, and we were, I guess there would have been a time, even since I’ve been here, when we would have capitulated, we did it a couple of times.

“But it doesn’t happen now. We stuck at it, made saves, made blocks. All right, they may have been misses by them, but nevertheless we stuck at it and kept a clean sheet until we got the opportunity to score.”

Leeds boss Neil Warnock felt his team should have won comfortably but had no complaints about the sending off: “It’s difficult doing a press conference when you think you should have won 4-0 or 5-0 and you’ve been beaten by three. It’s a strange situation you find yourself in.

“But what can you say? We’ve got one lad who has let everybody down, let me down, the team, all the travelling we’ve had, all the fans that have come down. One stupid moment.

“I don’t know what else you can say really, it was just ridiculous. We were dominating the game, I’ve never been to Ipswich and dominated a game as much in my life.

“Even with 10 men we’ve never had so many chances down here. We had 15 clear chances. Two of the best ones cleared off the line by Michael Brown and Luke Varney. If I was Mick I’d fill in a lottery ticket tonight.”

Photo: Action Images

HALLSJ added 22:13 - Mar 30 Its very frustrating I agree Retro, if you look at the table we are now closer to 10th than relegation. I can see someone whose hung around mid table slipping into this mess. I think we need 9 or 10 pts from the last 21 available to be sure of safety. Crazy leauge especially looking at Birmingham winning 4-0 at Palace!
0

HALLSJ added 22:19 - Mar 30 Also our last 10 games weve conceeded just 4 goals, if we can maintain that sort of defending we'll be fine. How good are the pairing of Smith & Chambers?
0

blues1 added 22:34 - Mar 30 alfromocol. u ask if battyblue was at the game today> were you? if you cant see how loach could have done better then you werent. or you werent watching what others were. yes, he made several good saves, but as battyblue & one or 2 others have pointed out he doesnt come for crosses. and doesnt command his area, which imo contributed to the defence looking shakier than in recent times. no1 is saying he had a poor game,just that he needs to improve on dealing with balls into the box.also there were a couple of shots that he pushed straight our to waiting opponents when he should have pushed them out wide. however, as said before he dide make some important saves so certainly wouldnt say he had a bad game.

0

im_marcacus added 00:49 - Mar 31 Jog on Warnock
0

theobald1985 added 02:19 - Mar 31 batty blue and others scott loach got aq clean shhet today the holy grail for goalkeepers. he is are number 1 till the end of the season so mindless crtisisum of him is not at all helpful. lets just get behind him and the lads .for gods sake we just beat leeds united 3-0. some people need to get a grip this is an excellent result.scott loach has played a part and done well as have all the players and i think we can kick on next season without loads of new faces just sign stearman and mcgoldrick and give new contracts to drury and martin get murphy on a free and with taylor comin back chops nouble Jet we will pose a real goal threat and really kick on and challenge the top 6 next seaon.COYB

0

wkj added 05:36 - Mar 31 Sadly I feel Drury looked dangerous today- but not in the right way; he's been a great servant for the club but we need someone who has more about them next season; McGoaldrick will knock goals in all day long if we get a good strong creative midfield.
0

battyblue added 06:54 - Mar 31 alfromcol yes agree to a certain extent he is a shot stopper But he doesn't come and take out crosses he stands on his line if he did there would have been less shots on goal to deal with and less corners also he does not control his area which puts pressure on the defence but today we got away with it great three points onward and upward hope scott improves with games

0

blues1 added 07:13 - Mar 31 theobald. nobody has given any mindless criticism of loach. if you read the posts correctly people are just pointing out what is simply obvious to most people that he fails to dominate his area, just standing watching crosses come over rsther than come to collect the crosses as henderson did on several occaasions in matches. this means more shots on goal, and more pressure on the defence which is why the defence looked less convincing than of late. yes, we kept a clean sheet, but lets be honest, we were fortunate to do so. and again theobald, no1 has sadi he had a bad game, just pointing out his shortfalls which could be costly before the end of the season, if he could sort this part of his game however he would be a top keeper.

0

BrettenhamBlue added 07:38 - Mar 31 Good result against Leeds. If we had lost we would be right in it once again. At the moment there are so many teams that have the potential to go down. Bristol City seem to be losing the pace a bit and look like certainties for the drop but the other 2 places are still up for grabs (and not a grabs that we want). We do have some difficult fixtures coming up so this win was crucial. We could also do with a bit of luck for the next couple of weeks (i.e. Bristol, Wolves and Barnsley losing). 1 Apr Millwall A 6 Apr Derby County A 13 Apr Hull City H 16 Apr Crystal Palace H 20 Apr Sheffield Wednesday A 27 Apr Birmingham City H 4 May Burnley A Hard to tell how many points we will need to stay up. This division this season is just plain weird.Still don't think that even Birmingham and Leeds are even safe. Out of all the teams down there Millwall look most likely to stay up- they have 2 games in hand on practically every other team. Those last 3 games (Sheff Wed, Birmingham, Burnley) could all be 6-point fixtures.

0

theobald1985 added 08:40 - Mar 31 blues1 over the last few days i have seen loads of stupid comments re scott loach like how if we play him he will take us down and how he is half the player henderson is. JUst silly stuff really by people who dont really have a clue. On a day where we scored 3 and conceded 0 it is troubling to me that people are nitpicking about his performance. I think the command of area comes with confidence. Hendersons command of his area got better the more games he played and when we started getting behind him instead of moaning. Loach is number 1 at least until the end of the season and feel he should be congratulated on his clean sheet not have his performance picked apart when he did not even concede.keepers get better with age and games and i think loach will come good if we all just get behind him. Happy easter by the way

0

Keaneish added 08:44 - Mar 31 Completely agree wkj. I think N'daw will be back tomorrow. I saw a lot of drury's frailties yesterday. He's improved getting forward but not the spark we need. He'll be a back-up player at best next season but I doubt he'll get a new contract. Martin will as he offers something different. In my opinion we'll look to sign the following next season if we stay up: GK, RB, back-up CB, 2 x CM and another ST - 6 players in for me which will be a mixture of prem and league one.

0

Norwichbeater added 09:50 - Mar 31 We won't need anything like 10 more points. 5 or 6 will keep us up. You will get a couple of teams dragged down. Bristol city, Blackburn, and Wolves are my prediction. However I am confident we will get at least 3 more wins. Easy!!
0

neillrumsey added 12:34 - Mar 31 Fantastic result albeit the sending off changed the game in our favour when we were getting bullied and were quite frankly second best. McGoldrick done very well up front and hats off to Hyam and Drury who was excellent second half after a average first half. Negative for me is Murphy up front. Hold up play poor bullied too often and couldn't win a header. Ex scum man Morrison looked a decent player. To finish off JET was inspirational when he came on . Calm finish , exquisite pass for Tabb and the volley was almost goal of the season... great win

0

mawwam added 12:48 - Mar 31 Theobald, so glad you said exactly what I was about to post, Henderson and loach are both very similar standards... I commented during the game on loachs parrying and not catching often enough, but what everyone has to remember is how bad Henderson was in his first handful of games. It's only a few games like today that will build loachs confidence and have him commanding and communicating with the defence more! Some superb blocks and reaction saves today. Keep it up and we'll have a good solid no.1 for next season.

0

mawwam added 12:55 - Mar 31 Also meant to add, superb Emmanuel Thomas, brings some excitement to the games, and makes for great watching, great to come on when the team are struggling to break down defences! The ball through to Tabb who's goal was only stopped by a brilliant come back save from Kenny, and the volley which even going over left me speechless for a few seconds!! Glad he's back in Micks team. Keep it up.

0

Ipswichbusiness added 17:10 - Mar 31 That is a great win; clean sheet, three goals and three points. Well done all! We may have had a little bit of luck, but you still have to make it count and we did. It's a very strange league. If you are an optimist then you look at the table and say that we are four points from safe, respectable mid-table. If you are a pessimist then you say that we are four points off relegation and that Blackburn, Sheffield Wednesday and Barnsley all have a game in hand each. The other strange thing lies in the number of points for safety. Looking at the recent past (see www.statto.com) the Championship's 22nd team has been; 04-05 Gillingham GD -21 Points 50 05-06 Crewe -29 42 06-07 Southend -33 42 07-08 Leicester -3 52 08-09 Norwich -13 46 09-10 Sheffield Wednesday -20 47 10-11 Preston NE -25 42 11-12 Portsmouth -9 40 So in most previous years 49 points would have been enough to survive. This year will be different, I reckon about 55 should do it. The other thing is that most of the teams that have gone down have done so with very bad goal differences, so that is something we need to improve upon ...

0

blues1 added 17:23 - Mar 31 theobald, i agree with most of what you say in your last post, but as for commanding the area coming with confidence, then no. imo a keeper is either 1 who commands his area or 1 that stays on his line which loach does, pretty much every other part of his game is fine. the trouble is, that affects the confidence of those in front of him, which clearly showed yesterday with the defence more jittery than it has been. maybe its just gonna mean the defenders are going to have to adapt to the situation as it is and deal with the crosses themselves rather than expecting the keeper to be coming for them. as long as that is established between them then that may well solve the issue. but as ive said before, he had a decent game, and made a few decent saves even if we got lucky with the rebounds on a couple of occasions due to him parrying the ball straight back out rather than away. i certainly will give him my backing regardless till the end of the season,and beyond should he still be no1, but have no doubt that a new keeper will be brought in during the summer.

0

theobald1985 added 10:38 - Apr 1 blues1 if what u say above is true explain why henderson initially did not command his area but as his confidence grew he did. I coach 8 year olds a believe me if they make a couple of good saves all of a sudden there coming off the line and shouting the odds
0

Blogs 295 bloggers

Ipswich Town Polls