With Ipswich climbing to sixth place in the table on the back of a six game unbeaten run the anticipation was high at Portman Road on Saturday afternoon prior to kickoff. The biggest crowd of the season of over 24,000 fans turned up (boosted by the clubs £10 a ticket promotion) expecting another home victory over Crystal Palace, who themselves have been quite a surprise package this season. Although it was sunny, the temperature, not helped by a cold North wind was very different from the last home match on a Saturday afternoon (v Brighton), instead of wearing T-shirt and shorts it was jeans, hoodie and a jacket - could have done with a hat and scarf too.
Jimmy Bullard had not anticipated the increased volume of traffic created and ended up abandoning his car near to Hadleigh Road and legged it to ground much to the amazement of the many fans who recognised him, as there are now lot’s of “Jimmy Bullard” lookalikes wearing wigs!
Paul Jewell made three changes to the side that had not lost since that away game at Blackpool in early September. Delaney came in for Sonko due to a hamstring injury, the other two were JET and The Duke being preferred to Chopra and Scotland upfront.
Palace looked a far better side than I had imagined with lot’s of pace, particularly Sean Scannell. It was another below par performance following on from the Tuesday night match against Portsmouth but this time we didn’t get the breakthrough and the fifth placed Eagles took all three points with a Paddy McCarthy goal midway through the second half thus ending town’s unbeaten run of six games.
So far this season we have gone from dark horses for promotion to struggling (after the 12 goals conceded v Southampton and Peterborough), back to promotion candidates following the recent renaissance, and now after one defeat??? More will be revealed after our visit to Millwall next Saturday!
No comments:
Post a Comment