Watford head coach Javi Gracia was happy with his side’s performance and the Hornets’ third away point of the season following their 1-1 draw at Portman Road.

Imran Louza gave the Hornets the lead on 16 with their first serious attack of the match, but Jaden Philogene levelled five minutes later to take his tally for the season to six with Town failing to take numerous opportunities in the second half.

“We came here expecting to try to win, but we knew we were coming to a stadium where Ipswich are very strong,” Gracia said. “They are one of the teams, like us, with more points at home.

“We know the difficulties we have had away this season and I’m happy with the attitude of the players, with the spirit they showed. It’s good for us to get this reward.

“We have spoken about the Coventry game [a 3-1 defeat 10 days ago], where in my opinion the performance was really good.

“Today, we’ve competed again. It was really tough, a really demanding game, and we had to defend well, be more compact in the last part of the game and try to defend in the low block.

“We had some chances to counter-attack, though the chances were not so clear, and they had more clear chances towards the end. I’m happy with the performance and the reward of a point.”

Gracia swapped Tom Ince to the right flank, moving Kwadwo Baah to the left, to deal with the the threat of Jaden Philogene and the Blues’ left-back threat, usually through Leif Davis but this evening Ben Johnson due to the former Leeds man’s hamstring injury.

“We need to be really competitive and try to be solid,” he explained. “Ipswich did well because they usually put the left-back higher and try to create superiority there. It’s not easy to defend and we tried to do it with Tom helping Jeremy [Ngakia].

“After that, they played with right[-footed] players on the left side, with left[-footed] players on the right side and they tried to do that many times. It’s not easy to defend. I’m happy with the job my defenders did today and the keeper as well.”

Photo: TWTD