Town's U21s crashed out of the U21 Premier League Cup in the second qualifying round after a lacklustre 3-0 defeat to Charlton Athletic at Portman Road on Monday evening.
Mark Kennedy named a young side with Josh Emmanuel and Myles Kenlock filling the full-back roles and Alex Henshall starting on the left. The rest of the squad was made up of young pros or Academy scholars.
The first quarter of the game was particularly scrappy, although Brandon Hanlan headed narrowly over for the visitors and then forced Michael Crowe to spread himself and divert his goalbound effort onto the crossbar.
At the other end, as the half hour mark approached, Andre Dozzell picked out Adam McDonnell from a corner and the Irish U19 international took a touch before hitting a volley from 30 yards which was tipped over by keeper Jordan Beeney.
Town again had their Crowe to thank for keeping the scores level going into half-time as he thwarted Hanlan as the frontman was bearing down on goal, and from the resultant corner Josh Staunton's header was clawed away from the top corner by the Town stopper.
However, the Addicks did break the deadlock three minutes after the interval when Ollie Muldoon's cross-shot found its way to Joe Aribo, who bundled the ball home from close range.
The lead was doubled four minutes later when Ademola Lookman turned and beat George Fowler for pace before sliding a left-foot effort under the advancing Crowe.
VIDEO However it was a different story for our U21 side, who were knocked out of the Premier Cup last night #itfc
https://t.co/1rwqCZV7wq
— Ipswich Town FC (@Official_ITFC) October 13, 2015
The Blues only created a few half-chances and the closest they came to scoring was when Kyle Hammond's drive was deflected just wide of the target.
Charlton then broke and added a third on 77 when the ball fell kindly to Tareiq Holmes-Dennis after another strong run from Lookman, and the captain blasted the ball into the net.
The Londoners were better than Town in just about every area of the pitch and they fully deserved their victory.
Kenlock impressed at left-back with some good tackles and bursts forward, but the lack of chances that the Blues created at the other end was disappointing.
U21s: Crowe, Emmanuel, Kenlock, McDonnell, Fowler, Robinson, Hammond, Dozzell (Maynard 81), Alabi, Ford (Ramadan 46), Henshall. Unused: Wright, Woolfenden, Jones.