Neil: Ipswich Were Better Than Us in the Game Saturday, 12th Aug 2023 20:27 Stoke boss Alex Neil was magnanimous following his side’s 2-0 defeat to the Blues at Portman Road, admitting Town fully deserved all three points. Luke Woolfenden and Kayden Jackson netted the goals which saw the Blues to their second Championship victory and their third win in three days in all competitions. “The first thing we’ve got to do is give Ipswich credit because I thought they were better than us in the game,” Neil said. “When you come to places like this when they’re bouncing – I’ve been here before to this stadium and I’ve also been in the same scenario at Sunderland straight after promotion and that first home game. “It’s a great party atmosphere, everybody’s at their peak, the team's been playing really well, they’ve added a couple of wee bits and bobs in the summer to try to get better. “And then the first thing we do is give the ball away cheaply on two separate occasions. Our centre-back passes the ball straight to them, our wide player passes the ball straight to them. “What happens is the crowd gets up when you need to take the sting out of the game and quieten the crowd, take it away from them. “But they were really brave, they went one for one over the pitch and we lost. I reckon in the first half, pretty much every individual battle, whether it be a header or a tackle. We didn’t pass the ball well enough. “I was forced to make a change after 30 minutes because at that stage it looked as if Ipswich were going to score another goal. “I thought that made us better to half-time because it gave us a bit of a platform to get up the pitch. “I thought we started the second half better and we were good for probably 10 or 15 minutes. Then I thought they wrestled back control of the game. “We had two good chances at the start of the second half, one fell to Ben Pearson, one fell to Wesley, both 15 yards out, 16 yards out. We don't make the best of them. Then for the last 20 or 25 minutes, I thought they were better.” He added: “I just thought the first goal was poor. I don’t know where we end up positionally. I thought it just went into the back post and the goalkeeper should have got across that side of the pitch. We just didn’t do well enough today. “I thought what you could see was a team that's worked together for the last 12 months and a team that has been put together in the last three weeks. “You could see that there were certain times that we were trying to press and we shouldn't be pressing, there were certain times for throw-in set ups we were in the wrong position. That doesn’t reflect well on me or the team, so there’s a lot of work to do.” Former Norwich boss Neil felt the Blues presented a very different challenge to Rotherham, who the Potters defeated 4-1 at home last Saturday. “I think we’ve got to give a lot of credit to Ipswich having just come up,” he added. “We went one for one against West Brom [in the Carabao Cup] during the week and in that first half West Brom looked a poor team. They couldn't get out of their half because we pinned them in. “Ipswich did that to us today. I thought that we struggled at times to go up the pitch because when we turned it, they were winning duels. When we put it in behind they mopped it up. They were very brave in how they played. “We've done a lot of these press conferences and very few times have I come out and said we deserved to lose. I thought that was one of them.”
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