Town boss Kieran McKenna felt his players didn’t deserve Fleetwood’s last-gasp equaliser in this evening's 1-1 draw at Portman Road, despite not having played as well as they can.
Cian Hayes’s 96th-minute deflected goal levelled Luke Woolfenden’s second minute opener which looked to have seen the Blues to three points until the dying seconds.
"Could I see it coming? No, not in the context of the game, really,” McKenna reflected. "I thought in the second half we worked ever so hard.
"Of course, we can play much, much better than we played in the second half. On the other hand, there was a grit and a resilience about us to see the game out, we gave away so few chances.
"They had the header from the set play, but other than that I thought we were really resilient and solid and they didn’t look like scoring and it’s a long-range deflected goal, it’s a lucky goal, there’s no two ways about it.
"It wasn’t coming in terms of the flow of the game. In terms of the flow of the season, I think probably a lot of people in the stadium, because we’ve had quite a few things go against us very late in games, that feeling is there until you get some more games over the line to take that away, that’s the only way we can do that.
"I thought the goal was unfortunate and undeserved for the efforts that the players put in.”
He added: "To be honest, if the game had finished on 93 minutes, I would have been saying I really enjoyed it because it was a feisty game, they came to play, they came to compete.
"We played well in bits but in the second half we didn’t play well but we can’t play well for every half of every game this season.
"We’ve spoken about that lots and especially in the situation we’re in at the moment, we’re not going to be perfect, we know that, and we have to be tough and resilient.
"And I thought we were tough, I thought we were resilient, I thought we stood up to the physical challenge and I thought we did enough to earn a gritty win. So, I’m disappointed for the players because I thought they put a lot into the game.”
Regarding former Blues loanee Josh Earl’s celebrations which saw him dismissed for making obscene gestures towards Town supporters, he said: "No interest, to be honest. It doesn’t make any difference to us.
"He doesn’t miss a game [against us], he probably misses a game against rivals of ours. I heard the officials saying that that’s what happened. I’ve no interest in it.”
Town would have gone top had they won with Plymouth losing 2-0 at home to Port Vale to extend their League One winless run to three matches.
However, McKenna says missing out on going first doesn’t concern him at this point in the campaign.
"No, honestly I wouldn’t have felt any different if we’d have won or drew as we did if Plymouth had won or drew,” he insisted.
"It’s a gutting result because of a very fortunate late goal, which has completely changed the narrative and has changed the emotion of everyone associated with Ipswich. But the results of other teams at this stage of the season don’t interest me too much.”
McKenna admitted his team need to take more of their chances at Portman Road having scored only three times in their last four home matches.
"Yes, in this spell of home games we need to score more goals,” he continued. "We’ve had plenty of play, plenty of opportunities, plenty of chances and the return hasn’t been good enough for that.
"We know that, the players know that. People don’t miss on purpose or don’t mess up moments on purpose and we need to keep working to improve.”
Asked whether his side ought to have been awarded a penalty in the closing moments when Kayden Jackson appeared to be fouled, he said: "I haven’t seen it back. At the time it looked like a penalty, it looked like he was in front of the defender and the defender barged in front.
"I have seen the one on Cameron Burgess in the first half and I thought it was ridiculous. He got rugby tackled from behind [by Earl].
"I’m really, really, really reticent to talk about referees but at some stage you’re just hoping that there’s going to be some levelling up because in every game there have been two or three big decisions to be made here and the referees seem reluctant to make them, outside of the general performance of the game.
"I thought we were good for at least one penalty and the theme continues at the moment and probably the only time we’ve had penalties this year was when I spoke about it after Barnsley, so I don’t want to speak about referees but I hope that the case is that things are given without managers having to shout and holler from the sidelines and publicly.”
Fleetwood boss Scott Brown was delighted with his side’s display aside from the opening few minutes.
"I thought the performance was outstanding after the first five minutes,” he said. "It shows the determination of these lads to come back.
"A lot of teams could go 1-0 down here and then with the momentum and their fans, and with the players they’ve got, it could see them go on to score three or four.
"But we’ve managed to go in at half-time and it’s still 1-0. We knew we would get a chance so we had to make sure we stayed in the game.
"Our possession stats are exceptional, against the team with the best in the league, and there were times when we were even able to dictate play.
"It’s a tribute to the lads' fitness levels that they continued to drive forward with belief and they threw everything at it.
"The game plan worked today but we need to make sure we can turn the draws into three points.
"We’ve had a lot of draws this season but this one feels like a win against a fantastic team at a fantastic stadium.”