Town manager Joe Royle was pleased with his side's goalscoring but was less than impressed with the defensive display as the Blues beat Crewe 6-4 at a sodden Portman Road.

Royle said that games like Saturday's are not good for the constitution: "It was a good day for scoring goals but not necessarily good for my health."

"We are delighted to score six goals. Much has been made of our lack of cutting edge recently, yet we have scored six and could have had 10.

"But our defending at times, not just the back four, was poor. There are no problems when we have the ball, but there are too many players who do not have a defensive attitude. We certainly have to defend better than that to realise our ambitions.

"If there was anybody who was uncommitted in the ground it must have been great for them.

"But in our last three home games we have conceded nine goals and it has got to be better. We've got to find a better formula - not just the back four - to take us on."

Crewe boss Dario Gradi was similarly unimpressed with his backline: "Our defenders were all poor. None of them had a good game and they all made mistakes.

"I had told them before the game how well they had been doing, but their two centre forwards, in particular, were too good for us today.

"We had a chance at 4-3 but we could not keep them out. We kept going and playing with a lot of spirit. The boys kept getting themselves back into it, but I don't know how some of the goals went in and in the end Ipswich were the better side."

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