Man in the middle becomes the main talking point following Town’s 1-1 draw against Preston

Sadly, the main talking point of yesterday’s (Saturday, January 31) Championship game between Ipswich Town and Preston North End has to be the referee.

John Busby made some rather questionable decision throughout in the 1-1 draw with his highlights coming in added on time.

Firstly he awarded a dubious penalty for the Super Blues when Jack Clarke appeared to be tripped by Preston’s Pol Valentin but turned away three others late on.

The Town fans were full of fury when Mr Busby blew the final whistle and showed their clear anger with a cacophony of boos.

Ipswich were guilty of missing some guilt edge chances prior to Clarke’s incisive penalty but Preston also had some great chances before and after they took the lead in the 72nd minute through a scrappy goal from Lewis Gibson.

But the whistle happy official didn’t help either side’s cause to be fair particularly in the grandstand finish to the game.

Clarke appeared to slip, and from a Preston perspective, he looked to have touched the ball twice but Mr Busby ruled that out.

But more glaringly the Blues had three more shouts for spot kicks.

First when Clarke burst between Ali McCann and Valentin before taking a tumble. That looked more stonewall than the one that was given.

Then, twice, shots/passes in the box clearly hit Preston arms. It looked like Mr Busby was too scared to give two penalty awards in such quick succession.

Town fell to fourth in the league after Hull won 1-0 at Blackburn and the hopes of gaining an automatic promotion spot seem to be slowly ebbing away.

We’re now seven points off the top two after Middlesbrough drew level with league leaders Coventry as Boro beat Norwich City 1-0 with the Sky Blues losing at QPR 2-1.

Town have a game in hand on them but there’s a run of four away league games to come now against some strong opposition … Portsmouth, Derby, Wrexham and Watford. Meanwhile, Hull, now sitting third, are two points ahead of Ipswich.

Speaking after the match Ipswich manager Kieran McKenna told Town TV that he was pleased with his side who displayed “really good character” after going a goal down.

He said: “That game can easily get away from you. You can lose it 2-0. Earlier in the season we lost a game 3-0, players dropped their heads, the crowd dropped their heads and I thought the crowd were outstanding in that phase, stuck with the players.

“The players really stuck at it. Jack Clarke had a 60 yard recovery run at 1-0 … down the touchline after we lost the ball, got the ball back and I thought we showed really good character.

“We spoke about that this week, our reaction to going behind in games needed to be better and I thought today it was really good and to be honest I thought it was a come back victory performance because we deserved to get the first goal, we should have, by right, two more penalties in the last few minutes.

“We pushed with absolutely everything, everyone kept going, we had some big chances but we just didn’t manage to get it over the line so we’re really frustrated by that to drop points at home but I take positives in the way that the players, the crowd stuck at it, showed that resilience because we’re certainly going to need that between now and the end of the season.”