Town boss Paul Jewell praised his side’s workrate as they beat Bristol City 1-0 at Ashton Gate despite being down to 10 men and revealed that Damien Delaney and others are close to signing their new contracts. Josh Carson's 30-yard strike saw the Blues to their eighth away win of the season and up to 12th in the Championship.

Jewell was delighted with his team’s fourth win in five games, achieved despite being down to men for 61 minutes after Lee Martin was sent off: “I’d rather do it with 11. Playing with 10 men for an hour on a hot day was always going to be difficult, but you could see how hard the lads worked.

“We kept our shape, had a little bit of luck at times, but in the second half I can’t remember our goalkeeper having too many saves to make. In fact, if we’d have been a little more clinical we could have scored a couple of goals.”

The Town manager was unsighted on the red card incident but felt a similar challenge had gone unpunished a few minutes earlier: “I didn’t have a great view of it, but the only thing I would say is that I think there was a foul committed by Cisse in the middle of the park five minutes previously and it wasn’t given as a foul.

“But I thought the referee had a decent game, in fairness to him. Lee’s strength isn’t his tackling. It was mistimed, there wouldn’t have been any malice in it. I’ll have to watch it on DVD again.

“That’s the difficulty of refereeing. I asked him at half-time about the Cisse one and he said he didn’t have a great view of it, so there you go.”

Jewell says midfielder Grant Leadbitter was taken to hospital after sustaining a head injury during the second half, causing the game to be held up for seven minutes: “He’s been taken away to hospital with concussion and hopefully we’ll be able to bring him home.

“We’ll have to monitor the situation. I think he was unconscious but he was OK when he came off. I can’t say any more than that until tomorrow.

“It was a bang on the back of his head, there was no blood or anything like that. It was just an honest clash of heads.”

The Town manager played down suggestions of a late play-off push: “I don’t even know how many points we are away. Six? When we got here it was about making sure we didn’t get relegated.

“We’ve got four games left, that’s 12 points. If we win all those you never know, but it’s highly unlikely, let’s be honest.”

The Town boss met with agents representing Damien Delaney and Gareth McAuley on Friday and says new deals are close to being formally announced: “I spoke to Damien yesterday and we’re agreed and definitely on Monday, or Tuesday at the latest, we’ll have some news on both or even three, or even four or five, who knows what will happen over the weekend.”

Bristol City manager Keith Millen was annoyed that his team lost to 10 men: “I’m angry that we haven’t got something out of the game. At 11 v 11 I was quite comfortable, I thought we did OK.

“We were more on the front foot and had two or three opportunities. I said to them at half-time that they’ve got to demand more, that it’s not acceptable to be missing these chances and you get punished if you don’t take them.

“When they went down to 10 men in the second half it made it hard for us to break them down. The goal probably summed us up, it was a poor goal from our point of view."

“It was a bad ball in to the midfield which gave it away, one touch and a soft shot which has gone in. It summed up our display on the day.

“After that we huffed and puffed. When you’re playing against 10 men you’ve got to keep the width and keep the ball moving quickly and we didn’t do that. We didn’t move the ball well enough today but we probably created enough chances to get something out of the game.”

Photo: Action Images

mjw_1983 added 18:34 - Apr 16 'when they went down to ten men in the second half' - I think you'll find it was the first half well played today lads
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jas0999 added 18:37 - Apr 16 Great news - let's hope for confirmation before the Norwich game - means we will go into the match on a high! Really good result with just ten men.
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TrueBlueFerret added 18:50 - Apr 16 Robins Plucked!!Canaries 2b Stuffed&F#cked..........
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IP3 added 19:30 - Apr 16 Still don't think Delany is the defender we need for a promotion push, but what a win today! Great to see Josh enjoying his football ! Bring on Thursday, lets have PR rocking !
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tractor_boy_varnz added 19:39 - Apr 16 agree with you IP3, Delaney has his games but isnt consistent enough, i think St Ledger will come to town in the summer and maybe for a cut price if preston get relegated. Otherwise great win for the Lads today, Josh Carson gets better all the time! havent seen Martin's red card, was it definitely a red??
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yorkhenry added 20:00 - Apr 16 Just got back from the game. Very well played, tough when you've only got 10 men but we did enough. I would say it was definitely a red yes, he seemed to go in studs up and potentially two footed, as soon as he tackled him I thought he'd be off. ALB had a very good game, ditto for Edwards, McAuley and Delaney. We rode our luck a bit but a lovely finish from Carson separated the teams. Wickham had to do so much work up top on his own after Martin was dismissed, he must be knackered! Finally, hope Leadbitter's OK. It didn't look good. A deserved three points, overall.

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Garv added 20:50 - Apr 16 Connor Wickham isn't the only young bright spark at this club.
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sudburyblue16 added 21:11 - Apr 16 1st 1-0 league win this season. And where did Carson suddenly come from? There was no real hint that he'd take to 1st team footy the way he has. Now let's stuff Nobitch on Thursday night. We gotta make PR hostile and I'm sure it will be. Hope the police know what they're doing....got a feeling there'll be plenty of work for them to do. COYB.
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BlooooCD added 21:58 - Apr 16 Good performance from the lads! Gutted Lee Martin will miss Thursday... Jewell is magic! Now to fcuk up the budgies!!!! Coyb's!
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WREXHAM_BLUE added 22:21 - Apr 16 Outstanding result and effort today lads! I thought the red was harsh and incorrect at the time but having seen it again on Sky, I think it was probably right and to be fair to the ref, he had a decent game. Not sure why Millen thought it was a soft goal though - red tinted specs I imagine!!
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TrueBlue4Eva added 23:29 - Apr 16 Didnt get to go to the game today, but it definatly seems like the lads are playing for eachother and the manager now... which sounds alot different to what i would of been posting a few months ago.
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TractorBeezer added 00:21 - Apr 17 Well done lads. Good to see that we can keep it tight at the back...even with one player short. And Josh don't forget that you still have to clean Paul's boots on Monday! Wish you a good speedy recovery Grant.
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WeirdFishes added 00:29 - Apr 17 Great goal from carson, can't wait to stuff narwich on Thursday. Tbh I don't won't us to get play offs this year we ain't ready (not that we will)
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Hungry_Badger added 00:32 - Apr 17 Great result and finally some positive news in terms of contracts we showed fight today after going down to 10 in the first half, a little more confident in terms of terms of thursday, hope Grant recovers in time :)
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bobble added 01:41 - Apr 17 great result if only we had got rid of the dark lord 1 month earlier we would be in the play offs now... its the fault of those foolish people who kept spouting about its not the ipswich way..give him more time.. he needs more money and all the other junk we had to listen to.its a real shame these idiots kept supporting the worst manager we ever had because they were struck by celebrity syndrome and fell for the gift of the gab of the dark lord ' because we could have been going up with norwich this year and that would have been brilliant to have the 2 teams back in the top division playing huge derby matches .but thanks to keane and his useless devotees we get left behind i suppose there is consolation in the fact that we got rid fog him early enough to stop him taking us down into the 3rd but i still keep thinking if only those fools had...............

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ITFCFan added 06:45 - Apr 17 If only we had not given away a few silly points this season we would be in the playoffs now, But hay take nothing away from the lads for there effort since PJ has been in, Bring on next season!!...COYB!!!!!!
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Suffolk_n_Proud added 07:21 - Apr 17 At Bobble I was never a die hard Roy Keane fan but i imagine it was more a sense of loyalty to everything associated with I.T.F.C. and the belief he would eventually come good, (which will be imposssible to ever know now) as opposed to being struck with celebrity syndrome or whatever. People will support their team and show faith even in the darkest times, i don't think you can blame anybody for supporting roy when things got tough.

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DiamondGezzer added 07:28 - Apr 17 The difference beween the ' now and then ' is, no Roy keane - one Jimmy Bullard and there is a TEAM playing for ITFC now !
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corshamblue added 08:04 - Apr 17 Must agree that Jimmy Bullard has been as big a catalyst as PJ for the change in attitude and moreover fortunes on the pitch in the last months. Before Xmas we would have lost 1-0 yesterday. Outstanding Glove Work Yesterday by ALB.
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Back_The_Boss added 08:36 - Apr 17 COYB! Four games left lets finish as high as we can.
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