Boss Joe Royle felt his side thoroughly deserved their 2-1 victory over Burnley. However, the Town manager admitted that the award of the 80th minute penalty which led to the winning goal was harsh.

Royle said: "I don't think anyone can disagree that we deserved to win. We had 24 shots, some of them high wide and glorious, but there were two that counted.

"Burnley defended well, John McGreal was excellent, and I warned my lads that it would be a hard game against stubborn opponents.

"Five weeks ago, our fans thought we were going to be relegated, so it's great to see this revival."

Royle wasn't convinced that Michael Duff's challenge on Alan Lee with 10 minutes left on the clock was worth a spotkick: "It looked soft. The challenge looked minimal. It was perhaps less of a penalty than a handball incident in the first half.

"Maybe these things level out because we conceded a penalty like that against Leeds."

Recent £100,000 signing Lee was singled out by his manager: "He has not had a bad game, or even a bad half, since he joined us.

"He is deceptively fast and when we find the right partner, and all the possibilities are injured at the moment, I'm sure we will see even more from him.

"He has come here after a difficult time at Cardiff and immediately settled in. You take a chance with what you know and what you see in the transfer market and it's nice when it comes off.

"But for a horrendous run of injuries, I think we would have been in or around the play-off places already."

Burnley boss Steve Cotterill was convinced his side deserved more from the game: "It was very disappointing to be beaten by a penalty that, in my opinion from where I sat, wasn't a penalty. That decided the game.

"Michael Duff said that Alan Lee told him it wasn't a foul as they came off the field.

"We went ahead with a great finish from Michael Ricketts, but then conceded two bad goals. If we had cleared the ball, as we should have done, the penalty issue would not have happened.

"Ipswich have some good young players and their crowd support is fantastic. They were on Brian Jensen's back from start to finish."

Cotterill said he wasn't sure why Michael Ricketts was booked for celebrating his goal in front of the North Stand and was unimpressed with Wayne Thomas's sending off: "He told me he never said anything to the referee for his second yellow card, although he had a silly booking for his first one. It will be interesting to see what appears on the referee's report.

"We have had a lot of changes at our club. Every time we find someone who scores goals, we sell him. It is fantastic to be like Ipswich and be able to dip into the academy to bring players through."

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