Ipswich Town skipper Luke Chambers believes last night’s 4-3 pre-season defeat at Fortuna Dusseldorf will have helped a few of the club’s younger players no end.

The game was played in searing heat in front of a capacity 5,700 crowd which included 600 or so travelling Blues fans.

Dusseldorf’s second-tier campaign starts next Sunday and they fielded a full-strength team as a result. Town boss Mick McCarthy, by contrast, named a completely different team for each half – mixing up some of his more senior men with inexperienced players such as Josh Emmanuel, Myles Kenlock, Kyle Hammond, Dylan Connolly, Adam McDonnell, Kundai Benyu, Josh Yorwerth, Matt Clarke and Ainsley Maitland-Niles.

“When we were leaving the hotel me and Kev (Bru) were saying what the score would be in the lift,” said Chambers. “He said 2-1 and I went ‘no, it will be 4-3’. We were just having a laugh about it and my prediction turned out to be true.

“It was a great run out, an entertaining game and a very tough one for us being only our second game of pre-season compared to them being in their third week. They are a good team.

“Their season starts next weekend and the gaffer reminded that to us when we came off at half-time.

“We’re just looking at minutes back on the pitch at the moment and this was a really useful exercise. It was definitely a hard work out.”

He continued: “With the weather being so hot it was one of the toughest pre-season games I’ve had to play, definitely. I think a few of the younger lads found it quite tough. You can do as much training as you want, but you can’t beat playing games.

“It’s been a lovely place to stay. We had a little tour of the 50,000 capacity stadium and have been looked after and treated very well.

“The way it’s gone this is a fixture we’ll be looking to have again next year I would imagine.

“It’s been a different experience and has probably really helped our young lads.”