Results go the way for Ipswich as they climb up to third place in the Championship

If ever a set of results could have gone the way Ipswich fans would have wanted yesterday was the day,

The only blemish was Coventry picking up a point at Southampton.

But with both Middlesbrough and Millwall losing and Preston drawing it enabled the town to climb up the Championship a couple of places into third spot following their 3-1 win over basement dwellers Sheffield Wednesday.

And with the half way stage of the season coming on Boxing Day at Millwall what does the second half of the campaign have in store for the Tractor Boys?

Hopefully it’s onwards and upwards … but there will be a few more twists and turns to be sure.

Crucially a catchable five points now separate Town from second placed Middlesbrough with Coventry way out ahead and 11 points in front of Ipswich.

But the rest of the season of this unpredictable league could throw up further bumps in the road.

Who would have through that a dominant Leicester City, who overcome the Tractor Boys last week, would fall to a 4-1 defeat at QPR?

Kieran McKenna was, as usual, frank in his post match interview when he said the team took a while to get going and could have conceded an early goal to The Owls.

But dominant centre half Cedric Kipre settled the nerves with his thunderous header in the first half and leading scorer Jaden Philogene put the Town further ahead with a great strike following a free flowing move before Liam Cooper reduced the deficit.

But super sub Jack Clarke wrapped up the three points and put the result out of doubt late on with his persistence and craft.

Credit to the visitors from Yorkshire. They didn’t look like a bottom of the table team and threatened the Ipswich goal on a series of occasions and delighted their manager Henrik Pedersen who said he was “really, really proud” of his team against what he called the “best squad” in the division”.

McKenna told the Town website: “Some tension was in the performance, no doubt about that, so we weren’t as smooth as we would like to be.

“It’s so good to get through that spell, get the first goal from a corner is massive of course and that was always going to a big part of today.

“We knew at half time we had to step up and play better and second half to be fair I thought we did.

“I thought second half we played well, got the second goal, should have got the third goal really and then another lesson for us in there because the game’s never dead in the Championship in England, no one ever gives up as much of the game felt so one sided.

“We switched off at one or two moments and conceded from a set play and then again the game’s alive.

“They didn’t have any chances after that but it was never really settled until we got the third goal and we got it and then we could have scored any number at the end.

“So a mixed day, lots that we can take from it but really important to get the three points going into the Christmas fixtures.”