Town boss Mick McCarthy hailed a performance and result which he felt reflected his four years at Town more accurately than some other recent games as the Blues defeated Sheffield Wednesday 2-1 at Hillsborough.
"I’m delighted with that,” McCarthy said. "I thought it was a good display by virtually the same team that played last week. Really very, very pleased, of course, and even happier still with the result.”
After an evenly-balanced first half, Wednesday started the second period the stronger before the Blues got on top.
"That’s normal when you’re away from home,” McCarthy reflected. "I didn’t think we’d be the dominant team all that game, they’re a good side with good players, who rotate particularly well and pass it well.
"But we negated that for most of the time, I thought. They didn’t have that many chances.
"And as the game went on, when it got stretched we caught them on the break a number of times and didn’t really make enough of it, which we should have done, until we got the winner. I’m very pleased.”
He added: "I told you on Thursday [at the pre-match press conference] that I don’t worry about my ability or my confidence in the players and they’ve backed that up today with a really good performance.
"I thought we played well enough last week, we were just on the back of two horrible goals we gave away and it was hard to play then.
"We’d had one win in seven [before the Rotherham game], it doesn’t get any easier under those circumstances, I thought we were excellent today, I was really pleased with that performance.”
Regarding Tom Lawrence’s excellent opening goal, his first for the Blues, McCarthy said: "I said to him before the game that all he needs to cap off his performances is a goal because I think he’s been excellent for us, a really good signing, really good performances.
"I don’t think I’ve left him out, I think he’s played every week. He got his goal this week and it was an excellent goal.”
Skipper Luke Chambers netted the winner, diverting a Christophe Berra header which was going wide.
"He intercepted a header which was going over the North Stand by Bez,” the Town boss continued. "Nevertheless, they were both in there and attacking it and it was great when it went in the net.”
McCarthy felt the display typified what his Ipswich Town teams have been about over his four years in charge far more than some other displays.
"If anyone wants to judge me, crack on,” he added. "But that performance today and that result reflects my time at Ipswich, my four years and 202 games far more than performances they choose to carp on about.
"That is more like my team, that is more how I’ve been than some of the other performances, Brentford away, Leeds away, that reflects me far more. A nice result.”
He was pleased to be able to field a 4-4-2 formation with widemen, having not been able to name the team he ideally would have wanted to in recent weeks.
"I’ve had it here before, I had Tabby and Ando, although I’m not going to say they were flying wingers, but we were playing 4-4-2.
"I’ve not been able to play 4-4-2 really, I’ve had Pits injured, Reg Varney injured, Didzy injured, we sold Murph, Besty came in.
"So to play two strikers from the start when we’ve only got two it makes it pretty difficult then to make substitutions.
"That’s my preferred way of playing, sometimes I’ll choose differently if we have to stop the opposition but it proved fruitful today.”
The result meant McCarthy’s remarkable unbeaten record as a manager at Hillsborough continued.
"Apparently, maybe they should make me the manager here!” he joked. "No, I forgot, I’ll be with [Ipswich] for another couple of weeks now.”
McCarthy's only managerial defeat to Wednesday came as Millwall boss in a League Cup tie at the Den in 1995.
The win and performance see the Blues go into the international break with the mood much more positive than it was going into the game.
"Of course it is,” McCarthy continued. "Had we been going into the international break, we were all having a couple of days off whatever happened, but the difference is that I’m going to enjoy them now.”
Wednesday boss Carlos Carvalhal thought his side were under par: "We didn’t perform at our levels, that was the problem today. I hope this game will be an exception in the run that we have because really we were playing, very, very well in the last seven or eight games.
"Today we didn’t perform to our level. We know we were playing against a team that don’t concede many goals, they play very compact, they have very good discipline.
"We knew that before the game, we prepared for the game, we took a goal with a mistake when we were planning to attack, we conceded a goal in a fast attack.
"After we try to find a way to score and we scored to make it 1-1. In the second half we started well in the first minutes, pressed a little more but really we don’t act today like a real threat to Ipswich.
"We were losing energy, we were trying but we were going against a wall and, of course, when you go against a wall and you try to break lines you open up spaces for the counter-attacks.
"One of the counter-attacks we made a fault we can’t do and from the fault they scored to make it 2-1. I think it’s very heavy the score, we didn’t deserve to lose the game, but we didn’t deserve to win also.”