Preston North End manager Paul Heckingbottom had “plenty of complaints” regarding Town’s penalty which prevented the Lancastrians from claiming what would have been only their fifth win at Portman Road in their history.

Jack Clarke was tripped by Pol Valentin and the Town top scorer netted his fourth penalty of the season and 12th goal of the campaign in the second minute of time added on to level the game at 1-1.

The draw ends Preston’s four-game all-competitions run of defeats and sees them move up a place to eighth in the Championship.

“The result’s a shame but the performance is good, strong. Just sometimes it goes against you,” Heckingbottom said.

“I felt for the majority of the game we were comfortable regardless of the players they’ve got, how well coached they are.

“I felt we controlled when they had the ball and after the first five minutes we carried our threat and I felt that threat grew in the game as well.

“It’s the way it goes, you know you’re going to have big spells to defend, especially as the game wears on and [Town boss] Kieran [McKenna]’s throwing more and more attacking players on, but I felt we defended the box really well as well.

“Frustrating, a shame. I don’t think anyone could have begrudged us if we’d had got the three points, they’ve had said, ‘really well done, big performance’, but we didn’t manage to do it.

“I enjoyed watching us much more today. You’re never 100 per cent pleased but I was really pleased with how we performed, how we went about it.

“I say it all the time, I’m not bothered who’s in front of us, I expect us to go out and win, and it’s a big ask in some games, especially when you come away to a club like Ipswich and where they are and what they do.

“I know we’re not going to win every game but I expect us to put in performances that give us the best chance.”

The Lilywhites were beaten 4-0 at Middlesbrough last weekend, which Heckingbottom felt was due to an unduly positive approach.

“We get things wrong being overly aggressive, which was Boro,” he reflected. “Yes, we made mistakes for the goals, but we made the game hard for ourselves. We were overly aggressive.

“Today, we were aggressive but we went together, we just denied a lot of space for Ipswich today and it was a team performance.”

Quizzed on whether he had any complaints about the penalty, he said: “Plenty of complaints, but I’m not going to air them.”

Pressed further and asked whether the penalty was the result of a tired tackle by Valentin, Heckingbottom added: “These days, I know Jack well and whether there was contact or not, he’s run for three steps and then gone down, so that’s the frustrating nature.

“But by going to ground in the box, you give, one, a player an opportunity to go to ground and, two, a referee a decision to make.

“You don’t go to ground and look like you’re lunging, regardless if there’s contact or not, and Jack has those three steps. It’s not a penalty.

“My thoughts are, I don’t think they should be penalties full stop, I really don’t. But we haven’t got VAR. VAR might give that when you look back because everything now, apparently, contact’s a free-kick or a penalty. Contact all of a sudden justifies giving a decision. They’re the bits I don’t like.”

After Clarke had buried the penalty, the Preston players surrounded referee John Busby at length.

“Our reaction was because he double-kicked it,” the former Sheffield United manager. “That was the reaction when he scored.”

Once play got back under way, Town pushed for a winner and had two more decent calls for another penalty.

“They’re going to shout then, aren't they?” Heckingbottom continued. “Think the ref’s going to give them anything. But that’s the atmosphere.

“We’d quietened the crowd down, we’d done a really good job at that, but that gives them the lift, they’re smelling three points not one and you’ve got to stand strong when you come away.

“But that’s what you want to play in, that’s what you want to feel and be a part of. But back to my first line, the result’s a shame but the performance is good.”

Photo: Action Images via Reuters