Paul Jewell and Chris Hughton on the sidelines at Portman Road
Hughton hails ‘excellent’ Ipswich – but believes a draw was the fair result
By Dave Gooderham
Wednesday, April 18, 2012
12:03 AM
BIRMINGHAM City boss Chris Hughton believes Ipswich Town were able to play with a great freedom during last night’s 1-1 draw at Portman Road.
Town fans were left singing their praises of the team with manager Paul Jewell and midfielder Andy Drury both hailing the performance as one of the best of the season.
But Hughton believes his side did enough to warrant a point from the Portman Road clash, citing chances missed by striker partners Marlon King and Nikola Zigic.
He said: “I think it was a fair result. We know Ipswich put us under a lot of pressure – particularly in that second half. They have got the players to be able to do that, especially in the wide areas.
“They are always a threat but on chances, both teams missed some very good chances, and the fact we lost our centre-back in the first half, I thought it was a fair result.”
Hughton felt his side could have actually left Suffolk with all three points after Zigic had a late chance cleared off the line by left-back Aaron Cresswell.
He said: “When you assess the game, we could gave won it, especially with the Zigic chance (the striker.
“The ironic thing is with all the good chances Ipswich had, the one we conceded (from Jay Emmanuel-Thomas) was a relatively soft goal. That is the disappointment.
“The way to look at it was we could have won it, but we could have lost it.”
And of Ipswich, he added: “I thought there were spells in the game that I thought they were excellent. With all due respect to Ipswich, I think they are looking at next season and they were able to play with some freedom in their game. They were always a threat.”
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5 comments
Entertaining stuff. Enjoyable. But still only a point. Just three wins in last 11 now. Better showings though. I think we edged it, but they also had good chances. Overall very decent.
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Jason
Wednesday, April 18, 2012
The header was Murphy in the last few seconds of the match, the cross took a slight deflection of which screwed up Murphy effort but saying that without the deflection the Keeper whould most probably dealt with it, as for JET.... Well, in my opinion a game changing sub even without the goal, I felt he looked like our best threat on goal and made things happen around the box for us, optimistic about next season but not at all confident
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richcal
Wednesday, April 18, 2012
Really entertaining stuff last night, great atmosphere even though it was literally half empty. More of the same next season please
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trueblue
Wednesday, April 18, 2012
And then that was that header, easier to score with than not, missed by Chopra. But best game I've seen at PR for some time, even JET getting in on the act occasionally when not trying to win the game all by himself.
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JOHN BURLS
Wednesday, April 18, 2012
I was unable to be at last nights game but i will accept what the Birmingham manager says in his praise of the Ipswich performance. It should be remembered that a number of pundits said at the beginning of the season that Ipswich were the dark horses in the league with the squad available to Paul Jewell. The reasons for a poor season have been well discussed on this website so perhaps we can hope for a better things to come as we have for the last few years.
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Alan Chaplin
Wednesday, April 18, 2012