Town up to second place in the Championship following 2-1 defeat of Oxford

The beginning of a new year and a lot to look forward to as Town sit in one of the two automatic promotion spots in the Championship following yesterday’s (Thursday, January 1) narrow 2-1 victory over Oxford United.

Middlesbrough losing away at Derby by 1-0 meant Ipswich moved into second spot, a point ahead of the North Easterners.

And with league leaders Coventry only picking up a point at Charlton there’s eight points separating the Midlanders from the Tractor Boys.

But there’s still a lot to play for over the coming months, however, Town can be satisfied, so far, from their Christmas and New Year fixtures with Portsmouth to come on Sunday, at Fratton Park.

The teams in the top half of the league will continue to swap places as the games progress but there’s big hopes that Town can retain their top two status and even catch Coventry.

But they need to improve on the Oxford win.

They dominated possession with 63 per cent of the play and had 19 shots at goal with Oxford’s goalkeeper Jamie Cumming pulling off a string of fine saves.

At the other end of United had six shots with just one on target but they could, and should, have drawn level at 2-2 when Brian de Keersmaecker wasted a great chance for the U’s soon after the restart when he jabbed the ball wide when through one on one with Christian Walton in the Town goal.

Ipswich took the lead when Jens Cajuste won the ball just outside the box and fed the Town’s leading scorer Jaden Philogene, who twisted and turned his marker before picking his spot in the far corner.

The visitors drew level when an attempted Cruyff turn by Filip Krastev following Przemysław Płacheta’s run down the right saw the ball run on to Will Lankshear, who fired past Walton for his sixth goal of the season.

The wind was not taken out of Ipswich’s sails for long, however, as Darnell Furlong cut the ball back to give Cuba Akpom a simple finish.

Ipswich manager Kieran McKenna told the club’s Town TV site he was “happy” to get the three points and that they are in a “good position going towards Sunday”.

He said: “You have to be happy with the return for the moment.

“You’re never going to play all your Christmas games and say you’ve had brilliant performances for 90 minutes.

“You’re trying to play well for large chunks of the game as you can and show improvement.

“I think there has been that across lots of passages of all the games but still there is for us to improve which is normal for where we are at.

“I don’t think it’s just Christmas week, you go back probably since the last international break and the Blackburn game rearranged sort of took away the only natural pause there would have been but that is what it is and the boys are coping with it well.

“w

We have a strong squad, availability is good, so we’re in a good position going towards Sunday, we want to finish the block off well.”