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Keane: Comfortable Victory - Ipswich Town News

Boss Roy Keane felt his side were comfortable during their 3-1 Carling Cup victory over Northampton Town, but thought that nerves could have been steadied if they had scored their third goal earlier on.

Keane said: "I thought we were comfortable in the second half but when you don’t get that goal you never know what might happen and they had one or two half-chances.

"We’ve seen enough times since I’ve been at the club us paying the price for having only a one-goal lead, so it would have been ideal to get the third goal a touch earlier.

"Credit to the players, they stuck at it and we definitely deserved to win the game of football tonight.”

The Blues manager was pleased with his strikers, particularly Tamás Priskin: "I thought Tamás and Jason put in good shifts for us. The onus was on the two strikers to give us a platform, particularly with their workrate, not to give Northampton too much time at the back because some of their players hadn’t had too many minutes under their belts.”

Keane says he’s not overly concerned about who his side might draw in the quarter-finals: "We’re hopeful of a home tie, but our priority is of course the league game on Saturday.

"The big boys will start flexing their muscles, as you’d expect a lot of them to get through over the next 24 hours, but the finals, semi-finals and the quarter-final are a long way off yet. Our mindset has to be on Saturday.”

Keane says Connor Wickham is likely to be out for around two weeks after twisting his ankle in training on Sunday, while Grant Leadbitter is a doubt for Saturday's home match against Millwall with a knee injury. David Norris has a dead leg after colliding with the Northampton keeper in the first half just before Damien Delaney’s goal.

Northampton manager Ian Sampson thought that his side scored too soon: "I think it was a well-worked goal, a good shot, we got a bit lucky with the deflection, but you do start dreaming a little bit.

"Perhaps it was a little bit early for the goal to go in and I think Ipswich’s quality showed through in the end.”

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