Best 90 plus minutes of football from Town this season? No question about it
That’s got to be one of the best, if not the best 90 plus minutes, from Ipswich Town this season.
They were overwhelmingly in control of an unbeaten-at-home Coventry City throughout the game with superb individual performances from all of the squad.
Jack Clarke was named man of the match in last night’s (Monday, December 29) 2-0 victory but there were so many outstanding players who could have been awarded that accolade.
Darnell Furlong impressed keeping Coventry’s danger man Ephron Mason-Clark under control, Azor Matusiwa and Jack Taylor bossed the midfield linking up with Marcelino Nunez with winger Clarke a constant threat to the City defence.
Add to that the second goal from the returning Wes Burns it was a significant statement win for the Town.
Clarke’s opening goal came from a huge deflection off former Ipswich defender Luke Woolfenden to put the visitors in front with less than 20 minutes to play and he was also instrumental in the decisive second goal as he streaked down the left before squaring to Nunez and the Chilean teed up Burns to slide home a second, via a small deflection.
It was a great moment for the Wales international who only returned from 11 months out with an anterior cruciate ligament injury in Friday’s Boxing Day game at Millwall.
Ipswich dominated the first half and only a superb save from Carl Rushworth in the Sky Blues’ goal stopped Taylor from scoring.
Coventry improved after the interval and Christian Walton had to be sharp to get down to Haji Wright’s effort from outside the area but that was as good as it got for the hosts.
Victory for Kieran McKenna’s side was their second over Coventry this month – following their 3-0 win at Portman Road and they have now won four of their past six games to move into the automatic promotion race after an inconsistent start to the season.
They were dealt a blow pre-match when influential left-back Leif Davis was ruled out through illness. However, stand-in Jacob Greaves had an excellent game in his absence
McKenna was rightly proud of the teams’ performance and told Town TV: “A really good performance, first half in particular.
“We really took control of the game, showed confidence, belief.
“Our intensity in the game was really good, connections and play through the pitch was really good … a big performance.
“Should have been ahead at half time and of course then you know it’s going to be difficult to get the result because the whole game was never going to be like that and they were always going to have periods of pressure.
“They had a little bit of pressure at the start of the second half, some set plays and we had to stay strong against those and then we got the goals I think the performance deserved really overall.
“A really good performance and result.”