Wrexham boss Phil Parkinson was delighted to take the Red Dragons to the fifth round of the FA Cup for the first time since 1997 following their 1-0 victory over the Blues at the Racecourse Ground.

Josh Windass’s 34th-minute goal proved decisive as the Blues made their exit from the competition the club won for the only time in 1978.

“We spoke about it before the game about our chance to create a bit of history and we’ve done it and I’m so pleased because it was always going to be a tough game,” Parkinson said. “Ipswich are a very good side, but the manner of the performance I thought was good.

“Every season in football is special, you’ve got to savour it and the FA Cup is part of that and it was important that we backed up the Nottingham Forest win with another win tonight.”

Parkinson felt his side might have won more comfortably, Blues keeper Alex Palmer having tipped a later Windass effort wide.

“We had other moments, we probably could have extended the lead,” the one-time Colchester boss insisted. “They had a bit more play in the second period, but they were always going to because they’re a good side.

“But in general, I thought we showed how we’ve evolved as a team since we played them down at their place [a 0-0 draw n November] where were excellent with the detail out of possession, but tonight with the ball I thought we were really good at times and that’s what we’re all about, we’re evolving as a team into this level and I enjoyed watching some of the football tonight.”

Parkinson’s side have now kept two clean sheets against Town this season and the Wrexham boss was pleased that his team showed their strengths at both ends of the field in the wake of a 2-0 defeat at home to Millwall last weekend.

“I think it was important for us tonight because on Saturday we played well between both boxes, some of the football was excellent, but we spoke to the lads about that before the game, about getting that resilience at both ends of the pitch back in our game, and I felt we did that,” he continued.

“That’s so important. Bodies on the line when it matters most at one end and movement and quality in the final third. That’s where the game’s won or lost and I felt we got that balance right tonight.

“The second half we played some great balls across the face of the goal, probably could have scored again but we didn’t and we dug deep as a team.”

Regarding the goal, he added: “Good play from Longy [Ryan Longman], really pleased with Ryan, really positive play against [Elkan] Baggott, cut inside and Josh, good timing for his run and got that all-important touch.”

Quizzed on Town making 10 alterations to his starting line-up, Parkinson pointed out he made five switches of personnel.

“We made changes, so did they,” he said. “They’ve got a multi-million pound squad and whatever the opposition pick, then we’ll deal with it and we did, and I was so pleased with the lads who came in for us tonight. I thought they were excellent.”

Quizzed on whether he has learned anything from tonight that he can take into next week’s Championship games, Parkinson said: “I think Ipswich play a certain way and it’s similar to how they played down there. They’ll be different next week [as they’ll have] different personnel, but we’ll have different personnel as well.

“And we weren’t thinking of next week at all going into this game. Anyone who mentioned it, I said we’re not talking about that, we’ve got tonight and we’ve got Bristol City [on Tuesday at Ashton Gate] and then we’ll start focusing on Ipswich again.”

Photo: TWTD