Ipswich Town head into Saturday’s East Anglian derby against Norwich City as heavy favourites, but do the stats back that up? Alex Jones takes a closer look at the two teams…
The tale of the tape
Let’s start by looking at the league table. I don’t have to ask you twice, do I?
Leicester City’s 3-2 win against Millwall lifted them back to the summit, but that doesn’t really matter. Ipswich are in second place, 10 points ahead of Leeds United in third. They’re in a real battle for a top-two finish, and regardless of whether they achieve it or not, they’ve done incredibly well.
The Blues have already accrued enough points to finish 19th in last season’s Championship, while just six wins from their remaining 25 games would take them up to 69 points, which is the same total that earned Sunderland a sixth-place finish in 2022/23.
On current form, both Leicester and Ipswich are on course to smash all sorts of records. Norwich, on the other hand, are at risk of falling into real mediocrity.
It’s fairly astonishing that they haven’t already, given that they sit 11th in the table after a pretty poor run of form. Yet the gap to the play-offs is just three points, albeit that they face fierce competition from a lot of sides around mid-table.
Barring a major change in the next few months, that’s where they’ll end up, which is a bit of a surprise given that the Canaries started pretty well, sitting second in the league after four games.
They looked to be genuine contenders for promotion, but the wheels came off quite quickly after that. Looking back through their results, it seems to be the 6-2 defeat away at Plymouth Argyle that really knocked them.
The mood has really soured since then. A string of consecutive defeats to Leeds, Middlesbrough, Sunderland and Blackburn Rovers saw pressure mount on David Wagner, but he eased it by securing a big 3-2 win away at Cardiff City – a game which many supporters believed would be his last in charge.
They come into the derby with four wins, one draw and one defeat in their last six games, but have the performances warranted an increase in confidence?
The answer is yes, just about. That’s because their main KPI’s [key performance indicators] after their defeat to Blackburn were among the worst in the league. We’re talking genuine relegation numbers, even worse than the likes of Sheffield Wednesday and Rotherham United in some areas.
Wagner has steadied the ship, to an extent. They were leaking goals up until the end of October, and while conceding two to Cardiff and three to Watford doesn’t exactly show clear improvement, their xGA [expected goals against] has stopped plummeting to the same extent, although they still rank towards the bottom end of the division in that regard.
A more simplistic view would be to look at the goals they've conceded - 37 in total. Only Rotherham [41] have shipped more, and they sit rock bottom. They clearly have huge defensive issues, and Ipswich should be licking their lips at that.
They do know how to find the back of the net. In fact, they’re among the top scorers in the division, with 37 goals to their name in just 21 games. Ipswich and Leicester are the only sides to better that figure.
It doesn’t really prove that they’re quite at that level going forward, however. Their total xG [expected goals] of 30.5 indicates that, while they’ve been good in the final third, they’re probably not at the level that their goals tally suggests.
It certainly shows a reliance on Gabriel Sara, who’s created more chances (65) than anyone else in the division. If his form dries up, or if he’s sold in January, Norwich are in a whole load of trouble.
Ipswich are in a totally different ballpark. Their xG of 6.4 ranks them second in the league behind Leicester alone. Norwich are sat down in ninth.
The Blues have scored 45 goals in 21 matches, averaging just over two per game. If you consider home games alone, they average three per game, having found the back of the net 30 times in their 10 fixtures at Portman Road.
That’s where they’ll be on Saturday. Their home record is immense, having won nine and lost just once in IP1 since the start of the season. To contrast this, Norwich have the 15th best away record in the league, with three wins, two draws and five defeats.
It feels like Wagner’s men are a team controlled by individuals. Sara (five goals, eight assists) is an incredible talent and top-scorer Jonathan Rowe (eight goals, one assist) has a huge future in the game, but relying on them to perform consistently is a huge ask, especially considering the latter is just 20 years old.
The rest of the squad isn’t hitting the same heights. Marcelino Nunez is taking the most shots of anyone in the team (4.0 per 90) but is yet to score a single goal this season. Adam Idah is starting to recover some form, but fans don’t seem to be totally convinced by their performances.
They also seem to be without a clear identity. They dominate the ball at Carrow Road but hardly touch it during away games. The result has been a messy run of results where they can’t maintain any performance levels or results.
Ipswich are the opposite. Kieran McKenna has a clear plan of action for every game, but his core principles don’t seem to change in the same way that Wagner’s do. On top of that, they’re very much built as a team, with everyone chipping in to score or assist.
The regular starters such as Conor Chaplin (eight goals, five assists), Nathan Broadhead (seven goals, two assists) and George Hirst (six goals, five assists) obviously have the biggest involvement, but substitutes have played a huge role within this team.
Marcus Harness has four goals to his name, Jack Taylor has two from midfield, while the likes of Omari Hutchinson, Kayden Jackson and Freddie Ladapo have also come up with big moments in crucial games.
All of these things indicate that Ipswich are a better team than Norwich at the moment, and the table doesn’t lie. Town are just 11 points off matching their rivals’ points total from last season, which is simply incredible, while the current gap between the two sides is 21 points.
Even when you look at Norwich’s recent promotion campaigns, this Ipswich side are simply at another level. In both 2018/19 and 2021/22, the Canaries accrued 43 points from their first 21 games and sat top of the table. Ipswich surpassed that tally with their 2-1 win against Coventry City on matchday 19. They’re now on 51 points.
It’s worth noting that no side with more than 50 points at this stage in a season has failed to win promotion in the history of the Championship. There’s a long-term pressure looming over the squad, but they’ve shown that they can cope with it to this point. They’ll certainly have to do that on Saturday, where form and stats can often be rendered irrelevant in a derby of this magnitude.
This isn’t a normal game. It’s not one where they can turn up and win while not playing at their best.
But this is Town's best chance of ending their winless run against Norwich, and there’s nothing to suggest they can’t do it.
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