Blues boss Paul Jewell had no complaints about his players’ effort despite losing 2-1 to Watford at Portman Road on Saturday, their seventh successive defeat. After the previous loss, a 4-0 capitulation at Burnley, he had compared his side to a “pub team”.
Jewell said: "I think the players owe it to themselves and to the supporters to give it all they’ve got and I’ve got no complaints about anybody’s effort.
"I thought on Tuesday we were very, very poor, but against Watford I thought we gave everything we had and were very, very unlucky. I think that was the difference.
"I thought we were compact and I thought we did enough to win the game, but we didn’t, which is the bottom line.
"But there were a lot more positives to take out of the game than there were on Tuesday, but at the end of the day we’ve still got no points.”
He says there were a few jitters after Watford’s first goal, something he feels always happens during a losing run: "It’s always going to be that way when you’ve lost six on the bounce but I thought [after the first Watford goal] there was a positive reaction throughout the ground.
"The players were disappointed to concede the goal, but I don’t think we went into our shells. They gave everything they had and any other day they would have won that game.”
Jewell felt the Blues kept going after conceding the goals, which hadn't been the case in midweek: "I think we knocked in their door, we had shots off the line, we had balls going into the box. How a couple of those haven’t gone in I don’t know. But that’s what happens.
"We’ve had corners and shots going in and crosses going in, and fair play to them they defended them well, but nothing seems to drop for us in the box.”
Despite their seventh defeat on the trot, the players were applauded off at the end with Jewell feeling fans saw the match in much the same way he did: "I think the supporters aren’t silly.
"They’re disappointed but they know the players were giving everything they had today and but for a little bit of luck or a bounce of the ball we would have won the game.”
The Town manager had praise for returning winger Lee Martin even though he made an error for the second goal: "I thought Lee did well, he was involved in their second goal, but that’s what happens when it’s not going your way and they’re not going our way at the moment.
"I’ve never really blamed luck and said we were unlucky but I thought today we were blatantly unlucky not to have won the game.”
Blues goalscorer Keith Andrews says the players are firmly behind their boss: "We back the manager 100 per cent.
"It’s a transitional period," he continued. "But you can see from that performance we back the manager.”
Watford boss Sean Dyche says he’s not in a position to tell his Town counterpart how to end the losing streak, despite turning things around at Vicarage Road after a disappointing start to the campaign: "Paul Jewell will have his own way of doing things, his record is good, so it’s not for me to start telling him what he needs to do.”
He also had no explanation for Watford’s extraordinary record against the Blues, Saturday’s game was Town's 14th without a win against the Hornets: "You can never quite find the scientific equation for why it that happens with some clubs. I don’t think that was the case today.
"We knew it was a really tough game today, an awkward one because Ipswich are waiting to beat someone. Every run comes to an end.
"Ours was against Peterborough in a topsy-turvy end-to-end game in which we nicked it 3-2. That’s what stopped our [losing run] and started a [better] one. Paul will be looking to stop that run and start another one as we did.”
Meanwhile, the AGM of the PLC which owns 12.5% of the club will be held in the Sir Bobby Robson Suite at Portman Road this evening.