Ipswich Town won 2-1 at Swansea City yesterday afternoon. Stuart Watson reflects on the action.
BROADHEAD'S BACK!
Leif Davis saw a rising shot tipped over in the 11th minute, before Cameron Burgess planted a good headed chance wide in the 12th minute. Finally, in the 13th minute, Ipswich broke the deadlock.
Credit to the alert Omari Hutchinson for muscling in on a Swansea mix-up in the middle of the pitch to stab a forward pass. The Chelsea loanee is proving he's got off-the-ball hustle as well as on-the-ball trickery.
After that it was all about Nathan Broadhead as he raced clear, held his nerve and coolly dinked a finish past on-rushing keeper Carl Rushworth.
Broadhead went off the boil a little after missing a series of golden chances in the East Anglian derby back in mid-December, so much so that he was on the bench for games at Leicester and Preston.
A lively cameo at Deepdale, which included a trademark bodyswerve in the build-up to one of Kieffer Moore's goals, will have made the Welshman feel better.
Since then he's produced a deft far post finish against West Brom, netted an inventive flicked header at Millwall (also forcing an own goal) and shown some swagger at Swansea.
The quietly-spoken forward appears to be a player who thrives on confidence. It's certainly flowing again now. Three goals in three games takes his tally for the season to 11.
In a well-coached, functional team Broadhead is the one who provides the x-factor.
STUNG AT A SET-PIECE
Much like at Millwall three days' earlier, Ipswich were guilty of giving away too many soft free-kicks during the early exchanges.
One of those, a bookable offence committed by Davis, led to the home side drawing level in the 31st minute.
The Blues didn't apply enough pressure when the deep dead ball was played square, Matt Grimes teased a cross to the far post, Ben Cabango leapt between Harry Clarke and Cameron Burgess to head back across goal and Jerry Yates scrambled in from close range.
Cutting down the foul count is something that needs to be worked on because set-pieces looked the only way Swansea were going to score in this game.
CLASSIC COMBO
Swansea have suffered some heavy defeats to the Championship's leading trio of Southampton, Leicester and Leeds in recent weeks. Manager Luke Williams, in the early stages of trying to change his team's playing style, hoped his team had learnt lessons and, with an extra day's rest, were going to be better equipped to take on another of the division's high-fliers.
Ipswich restoring their lead within four minutes was therefore vital to sucking any growing belief out of the home players and crowd.
It was a trademark goal that we've seen so many times under Kieran McKenna's management. Burgess' perfectly-flighted pass up the line was sublime, Davis' first touch was excellent, then came the classic cut-back for Conor Chaplin to sweep home on the run from the heart of the box.
Kieffer Moore attracting defenders into his orbit is certainly going to make this well-honed pattern of play a little harder for teams to counter-act now.
Davis, with 12 assists for the season, now needs just three more to break the Championship record for a defender. Chaplin, back in the side after a midweek rest, will have very much enjoyed his 10th goal of the campaign.
NOT KILLING IT OFF
No doubt about it, Ipswich could and should have had more goals in this game.
I've mentioned the two chances for Davis and Burgess at 0-0. At 0-1, Moore powered a header the wrong side of the post at a corner and also fired a shot in the box too close to the keeper.
After the restart, with the score 1-2, Chaplin pulled an effort wide from the edge of the area, Moore saw an angled effort tipped onto the bar, while sub Jeremy Sarmiento fired at the keeper from a great position.
Not opening up a two-goal lead meant there was always a sense of jeopardy during the final half hour.
DIGGING DEEP
Time and time again, Swansea put the ball into the Ipswich box. Time and time again, Ipswich won the first and second balls. Burgess in particular was immense.
"I thought both centre-halves were strong on first contacts," said McKenna. "We know that's a big strength of Cameron's and it's something Luke has been working hard on in his game. I have to say, beyond that I thought our second contacts on the edge of the box were excellent.
"They (Swansea) lock down well, they push a lot of bodies towards the counter pressure, so it's one thing heading the first ball away, but if you're not well connected as a team then that's falling to a midfielder on the edge of the box and they're having shots.
"The way our forward players collapsed on that and secured things that could have been shooting opportunities for them and turned them into counter opportunities for us was a massive part of the victory."
Midfield duo Sam Morsy and Massimo Luongo continually got in peoples' faces in midfield. Lewis Travis then replaced Luongo and made some big 50/50 challenges late on in the mud. Forward subs Marcus Harness, Sarmiento, Burns and Ali Al-Hamadi all helped keep the forward energy high too.
Finally, in a throwback to the opening third of the season, Vaclav Hladky made an huge save in the 88th minute to secure the points. The Czech keeper showed incredible reflexes to keep the ball out after Harry Darling's shot took a big deflection off Davis in the box.
PROMOTION PICTURE
Southampton won 2-0 at West Brom on Friday night. Leeds then won 2-0 at Plymouth on Saturday lunchtime. They'll both have been gutted to see Ipswich respond with an away victory of their own.
"We're up against three of the strongest teams in Championship history - we expect them to win," said McKenna afterwards, emphasising his team's underdog status.
He went on to stress that there's no internal expectations at a club who have massively overachieved in their first season up from League One.
Town might not be feeling the pressure, but they could start applying some. A favourable run of fixtures continues with the visit of rock-bottom Rotherham on Tuesday night.
As I keep saying, what will be will be. Town now have 66 points from 32 games. With 14 games still to go, that's already a higher tally than was achieved in nine of the previous 14 seasons at this level. It's just three shy of what Sunderland finished in the play-offs with last season.
What a ride. Keep enjoying it.
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