Millwall boss Alex Neil revealed Town going ahead through Jack Clarke just before the break was made his mind up to make changes at half-time, the Lions coming back to level through Josh Coburn five minutes after the restart to claim a 1-1 draw.

The result sees the third-placed Blues remain ahead of the South Londoners on goal difference but with a game in hand. Town stay two points off Middlesbrough in second after Boro were held to a 0-0 draw at Blackburn.

Neil admitted his team were very much second best before the break: “First half, I thought Ipswich were good. I thought they moved the ball really well.

“I didn’t think we got a foothold in the game, we were a bit panicky, we didn’t move the ball well.

“We pressed the way we normally press but, to be fair to them, I knew they were going to work on a lot of rotations to try and free-up that spare player in the middle and they found them more often than not.

“What I will say, though, they scored the goal but I think Patt [Anthony Patterson] makes one other good save, but other than that there weren’t loads of chances.

“But I thought, certainly if anybody was going to score, it was going to be them rather than us.

“We had a couple of little bits, Camiel [Neghli] went down the left with a shot. I think we had a shot from the right, but I wasn’t best pleased at half-time. I thought they played better and we needed to do something to get back in the game.

“The goal was the catalyst, really. If it was 0-0, I don’t know what I would have done at that point, but when they scored, we needed to do something to try and get ourselves back into the game.

“We went double-aggressive on it, went one-for-one all over the pitch and at that point one of two things are always going to happen - we’ll get the next goal and get back into it and we might go on and win it, or it could get a little bit messy and it’s going to be a long afternoon.

“Thankfully for me, I thought the players fully committed to it, they were aggressive, they went after the ball and in the transitional moments, albeit I thought they carried a threat, but equally so did we, whereas in the first half, I thought they carried a threat and we didn’t really, so the game wasn’t really ever going to fall in our favour from that point of view.

“What we did do, and this is what I want to make clear, because we took Mac [Macaulay Langstaff] off [at half-time] and brought Mich [Mihailo Ivanovic] on, the game doesn’t change on that, the game changed because we changed our press.

“I could have kept Mac on but if you’re going to play two up front, you’re going to put the ball forward and physical presence matters, and that’s why I made the change.

“And equally, I thought once we got the goal, we had a few opportunities at the end to get the winner and were a bit unfortunate with the one [from Ivanovic] that came off the bar.

“But certainly at half-time, if you offered me a point, I would have taken it at that stage.”

Regarding Town, Neil added: “What I will say is that Ipswich are the best team at home in the division. They’ve got an unbelievable squad, they bring a lot of really good, strong players on.

“But I thought in the second half our lads more than matched that, hence the reason why we managed to get a result.

“It’s certainly not to be sniffed at, coming here and getting a good result because they’ve got a really strong squad.”

Photo: TWTD