Many thanks to Daisy Powell for sending us the report below.
Leicester put out a team containing a number of first team players -Arnar Gunnlaugsson, Trevor Benjamin, and, in Steve Guppy's case, a full England international. By contrast, Ipswich were made up of youngsters (plus John Scales and Mike Salmon).
For the first 20 minutes or so, Leicester's superior physical strength gave them more possesion and a couple of scoring opportunities. Notably, John Scales' first touch nicely brought the ball down in the area only to lose it immediately to Gunnlaugsson. Unmarked in front of goal, he then spooned it off target when he looked a certainty to score. This caused much amusement amongst the crowd (of mostly kids and dads) and prompted the child in front of me to ask her dad, 'are we going to stay until half time or are we going home for tea?'.
Ipswich started to come into the match much more and began to pass
the ball more fluidly and with greater confidence. Richard Logan looked good, pacy and strong against the Leicester players' rather physical game. Abidallah never stopped running although was getting barged off the ball rather easily, and Ashley Nicholls was assured and
confident in his tackling. Justin Miller also looked confident and made a few Hermann-like penetrating runs forward.
The match continued with chances for both sides. Leicester undoubtedly had the easier chances but Gunnlaugsson and Benjamin were shooting wildly off target, Ipswich although building up possession were not getting the final ball in and lacked urgency. Graaven particularly was squandering his chances and losing possession. He came off towards the end of the second half and Darren Bent came on, who looked really lively, fast and broke quickly.
It was beginning to look like 0-0 when Richard Logan caught hold of
Abidallah's cross and poked it into the net. A good finish and it was
cheered by all the crowd. Even some kids woke up briefly.
Almost immediately Ipswich broke again. Logan headed in point blank but the keeper made a good save and he could only wildly hack at the rebound.
All in all, an impressive team performance with some good assured play
against a number of Premiership regulars. Bright hopes for the future.
Town team: Salmon, Artun, Moffat, Beevers (Westlake 81), Miller, Scales, Abidallah, Bloomfield, Logan, Graaven (Bent 65) and Nicholls. Unused subs: Pullen, Dickinson and Bonwick.
With Bobby Robson returning to Portman Road with his Newcastle side on April 14th we thought that we the fans should commemorate his huge achievements at Portman Road. We have therefore started a tribute book where you can fill in your memories of the Robson era or your thoughts on what he did for our club. The plan is to collect all these together and put them in a bound volume to give to the man himself. Add your memories here: http://www.twtd.co.uk/robson