Town defender Cameron Burgess says the Blues have to focus on the things they can control after they conceded a stoppage time equaliser in the 1-1 draw with Leicester City at Portman Road.

Jordan Ayew slotted home in the third minute of added time to deny the Blues their first Premier League victory of the season, coming just a week after another late goal went against Kieran McKenna’s side at Brentford.

Leif Davis had volleyed Town into the lead early in the second half which looked as though would be the winner, but the Blues were denied a penalty kick in the same passage of play as a match-turning sending off for Kalvin Phillips.

Many Town players felt aggrieved with the decision not to award a penalty, but Burgess says he has not seen the incident back and is focusing on the performance on the field.

“It was harsh, but that’s football I suppose,” he said. “The positive side is that we put in a good performance and it does feel like a loss when you’ve picked up a draw. We’ll take the positives and move on, it’s one to build on.

“I get too caught up in playing the game to see what happens, but sometimes that’s how it goes.

“I’ll have to watch it back, I’ll get the chance to do that and see what went on. I guess it’s a disappointing one when things don’t go your way.

“That’s football and not for me to make decisions, but I think you can probably feel that way a little bit. It’s tough but that’s something we have to look at and go again from.

“I guess my take is that it’s nothing to do with me and I’ve just got to do my job. I’ve got too much to focus on to worry about that sort of stuff. I don’t see everything exactly as it plays out as I’m trying to focus on what I have to do, so it’s something I can look at when I get home.

“We were in good control [until the red card], we had built on what we had been doing for the last few weeks and it felt good.”

Burgess says the players have received no explanation from the referee on the penalty decision and that the Blues have had enough time to get used to the use of VAR in the Premier League this season.

He said: “Not so much on the officials side of things. The boys who were around it seemed to think it was a penalty and Conor himself thought it was a penalty.

“We definitely have had them given and given against us before. I was probably not best placed to see it fully and I don’t really have too much to comment on it, but I guess sometimes they go for you and sometimes they don’t.

“It will be a frustrating one if it was a penalty and it didn’t get given, but that’s football I suppose.

“I’ve had a few games with the national team that’s got VAR so I’m well used to it. We’re used to it as a group now, it’s part of football. We just have to deal with it like every team does and keep doing the things we can control right.”

Town are now 10 matches into the season without a victory following late drama against the Foxes, but the squad morale is still positive and the belief is that performances have generally been to a good level.

“Not for the want of doing the right things,” Burgess said when asked about the winless run. “For the most part we’ve been in a lot of games. It’s a difficult league, we knew that coming in.

“We’ve put in a good number of performances now where there’s positives to take and we have to build on that, it’s as simple as that.

“We know the job at hand is to put points on the board, so when we can hopefully get that first win it will be the start of something we have to go on.

“We’ve improved a lot and we’ve changed certain things tactically, but in terms of our work ethic and things we can control, nothing has changed since the day I came in.

“We stick to the process, we know what we can control and keep doing and we’ll go with that same process.

“We’re in a lot of games. We’ve played some tough teams with a lot of different tests on different parts, we’ve faced a hell of a lot of it. We’ll just stick to that and that’s what’s going to help us throughout the season.”

Burgess says there is no urgency to get the first victory but acknowledged it was something that the Blues are keen to put to bed as soon as they can, dismissing suggestions that recent fixtures against lower-calibre opposition have meant Town have missed an opportunity.

“My view is that in football it’s tough to get results, especially at this level,” the Australia international said. “It’s a case of controlling what we can control and building on what we’ve built on so far.

“Urgency is probably the wrong word. We’re desperate for the first win, but not for the wrong reasons, I don’t think we’re in a desperate state.

“We’re still learning the league, we’re still in a process of developing and improving. That’s what we have to look at and keep up with at this moment in time and that will stem us in good stead.

“They’re all tough, every single game has it’s different challenges. You can only have 20 teams in the Premier League and that’s where everyone wants to get to, so every challenge is just as hard as each other for different reasons.

“Every game is exciting, every game is a challenge and every game has something you have to overcome.”

Moments before the late heartbreak, Burgess had produced a sensational piece of defending to deny eventual goalscorer Ayew when the Leicester forward dinked the ball over Aro Muric for the Town defender to clear off the line.

The 29-year-old added: “I was just putting in the work we do in training into practice, getting round each other and helping each other out. I thought Aro did really well to make him have to lift it and that gave me the chance to get back in.”

Photo: REUTERS/Chris Radburn

TimmyH added 20:12 - Nov 2 Here we go with 'positives' again...okay we've been competitive the last couple of matches and deserved 3 points today but good old VAR doesn't apply to us apparently. So 1 point from the last 2 when we should have had 4...crikey even Southampton got their first win against Everton today and they outplayed us!...worrying.
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Help added 20:14 - Nov 2 Cracking performance from every Town player today. Aro with some fine saves Johnson best performance at right back. Leif superb strike for the goal Burgess a few stray passes but strong O'Shea strong Morsy was morsy Phillips was strong Omari much better on the right Chappers fantastic in the middle Szmodics so strong on the left Delap excellent. Subs all worked hard but unlucky not to play with a full squad.

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TimmyH added 20:23 - Nov 2 Jog on blues1...people forget we played a fellow Championship side which we went up with, I can understand the accolades if we were playing Liverpool/Arsenal etc with that performance.
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TimmyH added 20:27 - Nov 2 Help - if you're going to pass your thought on players in that game try and do some accurately, did you see the game? O'Shea and Szmodics 'strong'!?! I agree on a number of others though but I guess we all have our differing opinions.
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Linkboy13 added 20:43 - Nov 2 I think fans have visions of how they want players to be. For example i didn't even realise Smzodic's was playing until he got taken off looks lightweight and slow for the Premier league. In my opinion the only players who have the technical ability to play in the Premier league are Hutchinson, Morsy. Davis, Delap and Phillips who im not sure his heart is at Ipswich. Can't fault the spirit of the team today but spirit alone will not be enough to keep us in the Premier league. I must admit i don't normally criticise referees but today was one of the poorest ive seen he seemed to lose his cool with the Ipswich players.

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poet added 05:15 - Nov 3 Story - Robbed-Mugged-Rolled over, call it what you will. Stolen - 2 precious items disappeared into the ether, never to be recovered. Suspect - last seen leaving the scene in a car. Victims - left feeling empty, frustrated and very, very angry. But it’s not the first time these victims have recently been mugged, and judging by the way things are going…. It won’t be the last. Ring any bells?

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TimmyH added 10:59 - Nov 3 Kiss my ass greentractorboy
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mathiemagic added 07:52 - Nov 4 28 league games left, can only realistically see a possible 30 points out of those which is, very sadly, not going to be enough.
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Linkboy13 added 12:10 - Nov 4 Yes agree Mathiematic it's going to be a season of hard luck stories blaming Refs and injuries. The truth of the matter is we are lacking quality players at this level. Apart from Morsy, Hutchinson. Delap, Davis and Phillips when his mind is right the rest are Championship and good league one players.
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mathiemagic added 12:46 - Nov 4 @linkboy13 - Sadly the quality is lacking as you say. No lack of effort at all in the games ive seen so far but the mistakes are telling. Looking at the fixtures then Spurs away, cant see anything from that one, Man Utd at home, will have their new manager by then so again no points. Forest are flying so no hope away from home. Palace at home is the next best chance of that first win.

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Dissboyitfc added 13:14 - Nov 4 As for Burgess saying that’s football, I don’t agree that that is how it should be or that it is ok, because it ain’t. Big team bias is very real but shouldn’t be apart of the game, let’s face it that penalty would have been given against us! I don’t think we are a million miles away from being a team that can survive in this division but we need a little rub of the green with decisions!

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