Ipswich Town face a top-of-the-table clash against Championship leaders Leicester City this evening (7:45pm). Alex Jones previews the action.
Bouncing back from a battering
Ipswich know how to bounce back from defeats. After their 4-3 loss to Leeds United at Portman Road, they went on a 12-match unbeaten run. They were then beaten 2-0 by West Brom, but they reacted with a string of four consecutive wins to extend the gap on the chasing pack.
However, there’s bouncing back from a defeat and bouncing back from a battering. The Blues aren’t used to being on the wrong side of a rout, which is what happened at Elland Road on Saturday afternoon.
Daniel Farke’s men ran riot, winning 4-0 in West Yorkshire with just four shots on target. The reality is that they were comfortably better than Ipswich and deserved their four-goal win. Kieran McKenna now needs to find a way to get his players back to their best ahead of a huge game this evening.
They didn’t hit the right levels in their 2-2 draw against Norwich City and fell way short of the mark against Leeds. There’s no need to panic, but everyone wants a good response, especially with the title favourites visiting Portman Road.
A test from the best
The last team that Ipswich have to face this season is Leicester, who’ve undoubtedly been the best team in the Championship so far.
The Foxes were shockingly relegated from last season, having won the Premier League title back in 2015/16. In 2020/21, they finished fifth and lifted the FA Cup with a win against Chelsea. For context, that’s the same campaign that Town finished ninth in League One after replacing Paul Lambert with Paul Cook.
The Foxes went on to qualify for the Europa League the following season, and while they were eliminated in the group stages, they made it all the way to the semi-finals of the Europa Conference League.
They dropped down to the second tier just 12 months later, returning to the level for the first time in 10 years. They’ve been a dominant force so far, recording the best start in the history of the division with 19 wins, one draw and three defeats from 23 games.
They travel to Suffolk on the back of five straight victories, having beaten West Brom, Plymouth Argyle, Millwall, Birmingham City and Rotherham United. Winning at Portman Road could be their toughest test of all, but on current form, they’ll certainly feel confident.
New faces
Ipswich haven’t played Leicester since February 2014, when they were beaten 3-0 at the King Power Stadium thanks to goals from Jamie Vardy, David Nugent and Chris Wood.
Vardy is the only one to remain at the club, although he’s set to miss today’s game through injury. £23 million striker Patson Daka is expected to start after his brace against Rotherham, while former Manchester City man Kelechi Iheanacho will be keen to return to the starting lineup as soon as possible.
Stephy Mavididi, who arrived from Montpellier over the summer, is expected to start on the left wing, having bagged seven goals and four assists since moving to the Championship. Sporting CP loanee Abdul Fatawu is set to play on the right, while Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall will almost certainly sit in the middle behind the striker.
The latter has seven goals and nine assists to his name, making him one of, if not the top performer in the division so far this season. He’s been simply superb for Leicester, which isn’t a surprise given the fact that he was linked with a move to Liverpool over the summer.
For all the talk of their attacking threat, they’ve also been rock-solid at the back, conceding just 16 goals so far this season. Wilfried Ndidi and former Tottenham Hotspur man Harry Winks have done a good job in shielding the back line, which usually consists of big names like James Justin, Jannik Vestergaard, Wout Faes and Ricardo Pereira.
On top of that, McKenna will be coming up against Enzo Maresca for the first time in his managerial career. The Leicester boss worked under Pep Guardiola in the past and has adapted a similar 4-2-3-1 formation that changes in possession to use inverted full-backs and overload pockets of space in the final third.
He’s tactically sharp, of course, but he also boasts the best squad in the league. His credentials will truly be put to the test next season if they’re promoted back to the Premier League.
Boxing Day record
Ipswich have played Leicester on Boxing Day before, drawing 1-1 away from home back in 2011/12. Their record on December 26th has been pretty impressive since then, winning five, drawing one and losing one.
Four of those wins came back-to-back between 2012 and 2015, beating Charlton Athletic (away, 1-2), Doncaster Rovers (away, 0-3), Brentford (away, 2-4) and QPR (home, 2-1). They’ve only played twice on Boxing Day since then, drawing 0-0 against Gillingham in 2019 and beating Oxford United 3-0 in 2022.
There’s obviously an added significance with this one. The Blues and the Foxes have performed better than anyone else in the history of the division to this point. It sees second hosting first live on Sky Sports. Unlike previous years, there’s a real feeling of something special.
Town aren’t treading water like they have done in their last Championship campaigns. We’re seeing them compete at the top of the division, and that should make for an incredible occasion against a Leicester side who’ve been imperious so far this season.
It’s a real benchmark test, and one that everyone associated with the club will be really excited for.
Keep calm!
Town were listed as slight favourites for the match as recently as Saturday morning, but their heavy defeat to Leeds has seen them become the bookies’ underdogs, albeit only marginally.
In truth, it’s hard to argue with that. Leicester, on paper, have better individuals and a stronger squad, one that’s better equipped to deal with a rigorous run of festive fixtures.
You could certainly argue that the month has caught up with Ipswich to an extent. Trips to Middlesbrough and Watford clearly took a lot out of them. By the time that Norwich came to visit in the first East Anglian derby in four years, they looked leggy and below their best.
The trip to Elland Road was an off-day, but one where they were brutally punished. It compounded a hectic fortnight of fixtures, and it’s only going to get busier. It makes tonight’s game difficult to navigate.
At home, you’d back the Blues against almost anyone, but there’s clearly a chance that they won’t take all three points this evening, making them winless in three games. That would give Leeds and Southampton the chance to cut the gap further on the automatic promotion places, which could cause some alarm externally.
That’s why it’s so important to keep calm. The first 23 games of the campaign have been far beyond everyone’s expectations, and a minor blip will almost certainly come at some point, even if it isn’t this month.
There’s so many ups and downs ahead of us, which is why we have to live in the moment and embrace the occasion. Tonight’s clash is one to enjoy, regardless of the outcome.
It’s set up to be a mouth-watering showdown in Suffolk.
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