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Chambers: Leeds Wasn't Good Enough - Ipswich Town News

Luke Chambers says he fully understands the frustration of Town supporters who travelled to Leeds and witnessed Saturday’s 1-0 defeat.

The skipper, who has come in for a great deal of criticism from some sections of the crowd this season, made no attempt to shy away from the fact that the display at Elland Road, which saw Town drop down the table to 14th place, fell well short of what he would regard as acceptable.

Chambers, who will be 31 tomorrow, said: "Fans don’t want to go all that way and watch a team put in a performance like we did.

"We know we weren’t good enough and we need to improve, which we’re looking to do on Tuesday against Brighton.

"We definitely want to try to entertain. That’s our job; it’s the entertainment business, sport, at the end of the day. Everyone’s paying a lot of money to come and watch us play so we’ve all got to be better and try to improve.

"But if you are winning games sometimes that can, sort of, make things look a bit better for us, so we just need to start concentrating and going back to our basics and winning games.

"I think we have quite a decent home record so far and we’re looking forward to Tuesday’s game.

"It was very disappointing at Leeds. We felt we were making a bit of progress because we had quite a good result the previous weekend, against Aston Villa, when we felt we could have nicked it at the end.

"But the performance on Saturday wasn’t good enough, from start to finish really, and that was very, very disappointing. But we are looking to put it right on Tuesday night.

"I didn’t play very well against Villa last week. I had a few shaky moments and you do feel it coming through from the fans on to the pitch.

"I’ve been playing long enough now — I’ve played a lot of games — to know that’s part and parcel of being a footballer.

"Every now and again you take a bit of stick but you just have to get through it and continue to help the team, which I’ll always try to do.”

Asked how far Town are currently below their best, Chambers added: "There are always things you can improve, individually and collectively, so we’re just trying to work on a few different things.

"We’ve definitely got to try to play a lot more football because on Saturday we didn’t do any of that at all and that’s why we find ourselves in the position we are in.

"I think we probably passed it three or four times in the first half and made a chance out of it but after that there wasn’t really much else.

"We’ve sat and watched a replay of the game between us and we all know we need to improve. A lot of people come out to watch us and we need to be repaying the faith that they are showing in us.”

Chambers will switch to a central defensive role against Brighton tonight and also the visit of Huddersfield on Saturday, replacing hamstring injury victim Adam Webster with Josh Emmanuel coming in at right-back as boss Mick McCarthy copes with an injury crisis that sees him without the services of seven regular squad members.

He added: "I believe Josh has massive potential. He has all the physical attributes and technically he is very, very good.

"He showed a little bit of a glimpse of that at Leeds when he took the lad on down the right hand side later on and put a cross in. It’s an opportunity for him to play at right-back and we’ll see what he’s made of.

"We have some very good young players who have been travelling with us for the past 18 months or so and the majority of the time there’s only one who misses out and isn’t in the team or on the bench.

"In training on Monday the gaffer asked a few of the lads who aren’t playing to take it easy a little bit because what we had on the training pitch is literally what we’ve got to pick from against Brighton.

"We’ve been fairly lucky with injuries, in terms of numbers, over the last few years.

"We’ve lost some important players at difficult times of the season but the younger lads have the ability to play and it’s all about taking the opportunity when it comes along.

"They did very well last season, especially Josh and Myles [Kenlock] when they came in towards the end, and I don’t think it will be too long before we see them more regularly.”

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