Town keeper Dean Gerken looked back at the 2-1 midweek home win over Leeds, when he had to pick the ball out of the net after just 12 seconds, and admitted: “I can’t repeat what I was thinking when it happened!

“I don’t think it had ever happened to me before, someone scoring so early in a game and basically straight from the kick-off.

"You think about everything you’ve been working on during the week with the rest of the team and it sort of goes out the window for the first five minutes.

“In every game you play you go into it saying ‘Be solid for 10 minutes and play your game after that’.

“The early goal knocked us out of our stride for a while but the way we’ve been playing lately, and with the confidence we have built up, it eventually turned out to be one of our best home performances in a while.”

Leeds striker Souleymane Doukara may have rewritten the record books with the fastest goal in England’s top four tiers this season, but skipper Luke Chambers headed an equaliser soon after the restart and sub Brett Pitman also used his head to claim a stoppage-time winner and move Mick McCarthy’s men up to fifth in the Championship table.

Gerken was a spectator for long spells and added: “I thought we played some great football and looked a real threat.

“I don’t know how many shots we had but their keeper made a lot of saves in the first half and I was pretty quiet.

“As soon as we got a foothold in the game I was confident we would get something out of it. Obviously, I wasn’t thinking it would be in the 92nd minute, but I was always confident in the lads being able to turn it around.

“I suppose I’ve got the best view in the house when it comes to watching us play. I looked at it on Tuesday, about 25 minutes in when it was still 1-0 to Leeds, and I’m thinking ‘How the bloody hell are we losing 1-0?’ I know you’ll always get people saying ‘That was a great performance’ but for me it really was great.

“My only worry in situations like that is that I’ve got to be much more vocal because I can’t let the back line simmer down and take their foot off the pedal. Throughout the game, from front to back, everyone was at it. I would say it was the perfect game for us — apart from the first 12 seconds of course.”

It was the third home game in a row in which Town netted a valuable late goal, not only banking extra league points but also earning an FA Cup replay at Portsmouth on Tuesday and improving on a poor run of form at Portman Road — just one win in nine attempts prior to the Boxing Day triumph over QPR.

Gerken said: “The way we keep going right to the end shows the belief we have in our team at the moment. We are a tight-knit group and we believe in everyone’s ability.

“We see it day in, day out, in training and it was always going to be only a matter of time before it all came together.

“Home had become a tricky place for us over the last two or three months — we haven’t got as many points as we would have liked — but the performance against Leeds showed what we’re all about.”

Photo: Action Images

raycrawfordswig added 10:33 - Jan 15 It's the score at the final whistle that counts.
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