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Chambers Confident Town Can Avoid Drop Now Lambert Has Transformed Club - Ipswich Town News

Town skipper Luke Chambers remains upbeat about their chances of beating the drop, despite a 2-1 home defeat to promotion-chasing West Bromwich Albion in Friday’s live-on-Sky clash.

It means the Blues remain bottom of the table, five points adrift of safety and with only one win to their credit this season.

This latest setback leaves them still seeking their first victory at Portman Road in the current campaign as new boss Paul Lambert suffered his first defeat in his three games in charge.

But Chambers said: "I’m very confident. Before the manager came in I couldn’t have said I was.

"The previous regime didn’t work out the way everyone had hoped but I just feel he [Lambert] has transformed the club in the space of three weeks and I honestly think we’ll be fine.

"It’s easy to stand here and say that but I think we could easily say that after playing Preston and Reading we could have four more points than we have.

"West Brom showed their quality on the break. I think they’ve only lost one player from their Premier League squad last season and it shows you the difference between the top and the bottom of the Championship — there’s not much in it.

"If we had taken a couple more chances and been a bit more clinical the result could have been different.

"I think we’d had our spells in the first half but we didn’t really play the way we can, the way we had in the previous couple of games.

"The manager’s message at half-time was ‘What’s holding you back? There shouldn’t be anything holding you back. Just go out there and have a right go’ and I think we showed that in the second half.

"We were in the ascendancy and against the run of play they have nicked a second goal.

"It’s frustrating really because we highlighted the fact that they like to sit in and they have quality on the break.

"Unfortunately, that’s what caused us the problem in the end and they’ve gone two-nil up.”

Trailing 2-0, Town were given a lifeline when Kayden Jackson netted his third goal of the season and fellow sub Jack Lankester almost snatched a point at the death when his free-kick brushed the post.

Town more than matched the visitors for effort and dominated possession, but Albion showed plenty of quality throughout the 90 minutes and were in control during a first half in which they pressed high up the pitch.

But Chambers added: "I think we found a way out of that. We were hitting Jordan [Spence] and Jonas [Knudsen] in the wide areas and managing to get the ball in their half a lot better.

"I just felt we lacked a bit of belief and maybe gave them a little bit too much respect, and I think that went out of the window in the second half.

"The performance was there and it’s just unfortunate that the result was out of reach for us.

"But you can see there is plenty of spirit in the camp. The lads don’t really know when they’re beaten at the minute and the frustrating thing is that we’ve come off the pitch not getting any points tonight.

"We’ll take the positives out of it. We’ll be frustrated for 24 hours but we’ve got another game on Wednesday and we need to prepare for that.”

Chambers praised the near non-stop backing from the home fans. "The support was fantastic,” he said. "You know when you’ve done alright as a team with the amount of people that have stayed at the end to applaud the team off tonight — and it’s not just tonight, it’s been all season.

"They have every right to be frustrated and get on the boys’ cases but they have stuck with us through thick and thin. They can see the tide is turning a little bit and what we’re trying to do.

"The lads are taking a lot more responsibility, being a lot more brave and it’s just unfortunate that it was one step too far tonight.”

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