Town manager Paul Jewell said he had no argument regarding left-back Aaron Cresswell’s red card during Saturday’s 1-0 defeat to Crystal Palace. The 21-year-old will now miss next week’s game at Millwall.
Jewell thought Cresswell’s first booking came about in slightly strange circumstances with referee David Phillips waving play-on and then, after his linesman flagged, yellow-carding the former Tranmere youngster, but had no quarrel with the second caution late on: "No argument. He’s a young player who has done great for us and I’m really pleased with him, but it was silly what he did.
"Once he’s been booked he should know you can’t talk to the referee in a dissenting manner.
"It was a little bit of frustration. He’s shown great maturity Cressy since he’s been here but I think it was just frustration on a day which wasn’t going our way.”
Cresswell’s absence for one game could see Reece Wabara make his full Town debut at Millwall. The Manchester City youngster likes to get forward like Cresswell, which could see Jewell look in his direction, despite the 19-year-old being right-sided.
Veteran Mark Kennedy is an alternative but wouldn’t provide the same attacking threat, while 17-year-old academy second-year scholar Joe Whight is an outsider to come in for his senior debut, although could find himself back in the matchday squad. Shane O'Connor is another option but has been firmly out of Jewell's plans since he took over at Portman Road.
Jay Emmanuel-Thomas was given a rare start against Palace and Jewell said he again showed signs of his talent, but only in patches: "That’s what he does, in spells he does [impress]. But in spells he’s frustrating, that’s JET.
"You can see he’s got the raw materials, he just needs to knuckle down, we need to get him in good shape, both physically and mentally, and we could have someone who can do stuff that other people can’t.
"He’s a young player and sometimes they’re immature and frustrating and certainly he’s all that. But he has got ability.”
Overall, the Blues boss was pleased with his team’s effort against the Eagles, if not their performance: "It’s not as if the lads have thrown in the towel, they’ve played hard, they’ve just not played well. Let’s not think that the team that wins the league will play wonderful football every week, they won’t.
"We’ll have to battle it out and we battled, we huffed and puffed but we just didn’t blow the house down.
"It was disappointing because we didn’t create chances. When you play at home you want to see the ball flying across the opposition box and shots going in and at times against Palace we weren’t as positive as we have been in the last five or six games.”
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