Accrington manager John Coleman hit out at the “circus” whenever his team faces big clubs in League One following their 3-0 defeat to the Blues at Portman Road, believing his side don't get a “fair crack of the whip” from officials.
Coleman was deeply unhappy with his keeper Lukas Jensen’s late red card, shown by referee Lee Swabey after the Dane upended Harry Clarke with the Town sub breaking through on goal. Kyle Edwards scored the resultant free-kick.
"We’re devastated with the sending off. It’s not a sending off, is it? They must have changed the rules and I haven’t been told,” Coleman said.
"A DOGSO is denying of a goalscoring opportunity, so if he hadn’t have fouled him, if he doesn’t foul him, does that ball not go by the corner flag? He’s got absolutely no chance of scoring.
"It just doesn’t make sense. Now the referee’s telling me it’s where the foul took place. It’s a load of nonsense, it’s [not] denying a goalscoring opportunity if he can’t score a goal.
"If our keeper hadn’t have touched him, it wouldn’t have got sucked back to him. It just doesn’t make any kind of sense whatsoever.
"You’re looking for empathy from the officials. There was none tonight. Twenty minutes in, 10 minutes in, OK, we’ve come, we’re blighted with injuries and suspensions, whatever can go against us.
"So we’re taking our time on throw-ins, the crowd are roaring, he’s hurrying us up. Twenty minutes to go and they’re wasting time at 2-0, he’s doesn’t open his mouth.
"Is that because you haven’t got 22,000 fans shouting at you? You’ve got to be consistent for both teams and today we didn’t get a fair crack of the whip. Full stop.
"It’s going to be hard to come here and win with the quality that Ipswich have got. We gave it our very best shot.
"We’re loads of players down, we found out that Sean McConville was suspended today at half-12 [for abusive and insulting language to a match official following the recent Papa Johns Trophy semi-final tie against Bolton Wanderers]. That’s how fair we get treated.
"So it’s going to be hard. I’m not saying the referee determined the game because they were better than us tonight, and they should be.
"Over the last three of four years, they’ve got three of our better players [Kayden Jackson, Janoi Donacien and Cameron Burgess], so they should be.
"But give us a chance. It’s a circus. It’s a circus when we go to a big club because what we do, we get punished for, what they do, they don’t.
"And when Kayden Jackson pulls me at the end of the game and says ‘That wouldn’t even be a yellow for us at Portman Road’, that tells you everything you need to know.”
Regarding his team’s performance, he added: "We passed it a little bit better tonight. Disappointed with the goals because we worked on that one, them getting in on the right-hand channel.
"It’s normally Wes Burns, but we know Kayden’s got the pace. So we’re disappointed that he got in and then he scored.
"And they’ve scored similar goals to that in the last three or four weeks, they must have scored four or five those goals.
"We were thinking we’d keep it to arm’s length for an hour and then throw the two forwards on and try and go and win the game.
"And then we conceded what we think is a very poor goal. He’s run Baba [Fernandes] down the line, possibly hasn’t gone across to close down quick enough. Shot hits the bar, we go to sleep and Kayden finishes.
"But we’ve given a spirited account of ourselves, and that’s all we can do when we come away from home.”