A look at the major talking points coming out of Ipswich Town’s 1-0 home loss to Hull City.
An air of acceptance
They may have only won 1-0 but, once they were ahead, there seemed little doubt Hull would leave Portman Road with all-three points.
The talk in the press box, and no doubt around the ground too, going into the half-time break was that the visitors had plenty more gears to find, which they duly did in the opening minutes of the second-half to score the game winner.
It’s easy to imagine, though, that the league leaders had yet more gears still left to discover.
For Mick McCarthy’s part he had every reason to be happy with his side’s first-half performance. Nothing scintillating, but they competed well with arguably the best team in the league.
Things seemed flat in the second period though, with little in the way of fight both on the pitch and in the stands as an air of acceptance swept over Portman Road.
Shooting stats tell the story
Putting it bluntly, if you fail to register a shot on target then you’re very unlikely to win a game of football.
The Blues made a handful of chances against Hull, most notably Daryl Murphy’s shot which hit the post before the interval, but they never managed to hit the target meaning visiting keeper Alan McGregor was treated to a largely quiet evening.
While Hull had more to give the Blues were one-dimensional and workmanlike, as they slipped to a third-straight loss and their five defeat in six games in all competitions.
Comparing apples and pears
Sometimes a bit of perspective is needed and, on this occasions, it needs to be remembered the defeat came at the hands of what must be one of the Championship’s strongest ever squad.
Hull had nine internationals in the starting eleven, with the luxury of bringing England international Tom Huddlestone, multi-million pound Manchester United youngster Nick Powell and highly rated Arsenal youngster Chuba Akpom off the bench.
On a night where Ipswich were without arguably their three most creative forces (McGoldrick, Bishop and Fraser) Steve Bruce still had 71-cap Egyptian international Ahmed Elmohamady and Shaun Maloney, who has played in the Champions League for Celtic on a regular basis, in reserve.
Like comparing apples and pairs, as Mick McCarthy said after the game.
The form table doesn’t look good
Taking the last six rounds of Championship games to create a form table, Ipswich Town are in the bottom three.
The Blues have picked up just four points from the last 18 available, have scored four goals and conceded nine and won just once in that time.
Only Wolves and Rotherham are below them, at a time where the likes of Birmingham, Preston and Sheffield Wednesday have been making great strides in the race for a play-off spot.
The streak is over
Much was made of Ipswich Town’s 16-straight Tuesday night home wins going into the clash with Hull.
That record was incredibly impressive and including some stunning victories and spectacular goals, but it came to a disappointing end.
The Blues have three more Tuesday night contests at Portman Road this season and you’d fancy they would need to start another similar unbeaten run if they are to be contenders heading into the final weeks of the campaign.
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