Promotion-Chasing Town Visit Derby Aiming to Extend Winning Run to Seven Thursday, 30th Mar 2023 17:20 Automatic-promotion-chasing Ipswich Town visit sixth-placed Derby County on Saturday aiming to extend their winning run to seven games and their clean sheet record to eight matches. Town last won seven in a row at the end of the 1988/89 season and the start of 1989/90, all in the league. The Blues most recently won seven on the bounce in the league in a single season in their 1953/54 Third Division South-title winning campaign during a run of eight successive wins, still a club record. Town’s longest winning run in all competitions is a nine-game streak during 1981/82. The Blues go into the match third, four points behind Sheffield Wednesday - who host Lincoln City on Saturday afternoon - with a game in hand. Leaders Plymouth aren't in League One action this weekend as they face Bolton in the Papa Johns Trophy final on Sunday. Barnsley, three points behind Town in fourth, are at home to third-bottom Morecambe.  While the Blues go into the match in outstanding form, the Rams have been beaten 2-0 in their previous two matches, at home to Fleetwood and at Peterborough last week. They have won only one of their last five games, losing three. Since going on a run of six league wins in a row in January and February, Derby have gone through an inconsistent period, winning four, drawing two and losing five. But despite that patchy run, Blues boss Kieran McKenna, whose team will be be backed by 3,100 fans at Pride Park, is expecting a difficult match in line with Town’s 1-0 victory over the Rams at Portman Road in October. “It was a really, really tough game,” he recalled. “Watching it back, it was so intense and I still think, if it wasn’t the most we've run in a game, then it was certainly in the top three in terms of the physical output that was required to get the result. “And it's going to be the same again. It's going to require a massive physical output, a massive physical and mental effort against a really difficult opponent. “We know we're going to have to be at our best, but it's something that we're really looking forward to. “Again, it's a great game for the supporters. We're going to have a big support there, Derby will have a big support and it's two really good teams fighting for things at the end of the season, and we're looking to go and attack the game.”
McKenna watched the Rams in the defeat to Posh last week and says Paul Warne’s side were well on top before the break before the home side scored twice in the second half. “I watched the Peterborough-Derby game and it was a really strong first half from Derby,” McKenna reflected. “I don’t think Peterborough had a shot in the first half at home, which Peterborough being such an attacking and threatening team probably shows that Derby certainly did some good things in the performance. “And we know they like to come out on the front foot and are aggressive and press high and look to dominate and impose themselves. “We look to do a lot of the same things in a different way. It’s going to be two teams looking to fight for the initiative in the game and there’s going to be spells when we have to be resilient and I’m sure there’ll be spells when they have to be resilient as well because it’ll be two good teams with different styles, but both looking to go and be the aggressor in the game, and it should make for a good match.” McKenna may well name the same team which started the 2-0 victory over Shrewsbury a fortnight ago which would see Christian Walton in goal, the Blues keeper and his backline last having conceded 686 minutes ago, like the eight-game run a new club record, during which time Town have scored 18 goals. Harry Clarke will be on the right of the defence with Luke Woolfenden and Cameron Burgess to his left with Leif Davis wide on one flank and Wes Burns the other. Skipper Sam Morsy and Massimo Luongo will be in central midfield with 19-goal top scorer Conor Chaplin and Nathan Broadhead, fresh from his goalscoring international debut with Wales, behind central striker George Hirst, who has scored in each of his last two matches. Historically, Town have had the better of Derby, winning 37 games (35 in the league), drawing 22 (20) and losing 29 (28). At Pride Park this season in League One, the Rams have won 12, drawn four and lost three. At Portman Road in October, Wes Burns netted in the 67th minute to see the Blues to a 1-0 victory over Derby County, their first home victory over the Rams since March 2014. Burns smashed into the net after Kayden Jackson, who later saw a penalty saved, had hit the post having seized upon an under-hit Curtis Davies back pass to see Town to a rare victory in front of the Sky cameras. The teams last met at Pride Park in August 2018 during Paul Hurst’s short-lived reign, second-half goals from sub Joe Ledley and former Blues loanee Tom Lawrence saw Derby to a 2-0 home victory, their first win against the Blues on their own turf since November 2006. Ledley put the Rams in front on 59 and Lawrence sealed the three points with a free-kick in the 68th minute with Town never looking likely to get back into the game. Town centre-half Richard Keogh was with the Rams between July 2012 and October 2019 and wore the captain’s armband for much of that time. In total, he made 356 starts and scored 12 times. Currently injured Blues defender George Edmundson spent the second half of 2020/21 on loan at Pride Park making eight starts and two sub appearances, scoring once. Blues first-team coach Lee Grant was a keeper at Derby between 2000 and 2007 having come through their youth system, then spent another stint at Pride Park from 2013 to 2017. Overall, he made 181 starts and five sub appearances for the Rams. Derby forward David McGoldrick was with the Blues between January 2013, initially on loan from Nottingham Forest, and July 2018. In total, the former Republic of Ireland international scored 45 goals in 126 starts and 33 sub appearances. Keeper Scott Loach, who moved to Pride Park from Chesterfield last summer, was an academy player with Town and supported the club as a boy. He returned in the summer of 2012 and made 32 starts and one sub appearance in a two-year spell. Defender Richard Stearman was on loan at Town in the second half of 2012/13, making 15 starts. Midfielder Conor Hourihane followed his former Sunderland boss Roy Keane to Portman Road in July 2010 and left the following summer for Plymouth without making a senior appearance. Saturday’s referee is Anthony Backhouse from Cumbria, who has shown 96 yellow cards and one red in s28 games so far this season. Backhouse’s most recent Town match was the 2-0 win at Accrington in September in which he yellow-carded Davis, Woolfenden, Burns and three Stanley players. Before that, he was in charge of the FA Cup tie at Coventry in November 2019 which ended 1-1. Andre Dozzell, Flynn Downes and one Sky Blue were booked. Prior to that, Backhouse’s only other Town game was the 2-0 defeat at Stoke in December 2018 in which he replaced the referee who had started the match, Geoff Eltringham, in the 39th minute and showed yellow cards to Gwion Edwards and Potters’ full-back Erik Pieters. Squad from: Walton, Hladky, Clarke, Donacien, Woolfenden, Keogh, Burgess, Burns, Jackson, Vincent-Young, Davis, Leigh, Morsy, Luongo, Ball, Humphreys, Camara, Chaplin, Broadhead, Harness, Edwards, Aluko, Ladapo, Hirst.
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