AT the time, a furious and under-pressure Paul Jewell described his side as spineless, gutless and likened them to a pub team.

The manager had just seen his Ipswich Town side fold 4-0 at Burnley having failed to register a single shot on target.

Fast forward four months from that dark November night at Turf Moor and the new and improved Blues go into tonight’s rematch on the back of an impressive run of just one defeat in nine.

But the manner of the heavy defeat by the Clarets still wrangles with the Town boss who for the second consecutive match will be looking for his side to right some wrongs.

Speaking at yesterday’s pre-match press conference, he said: “It’s an unfortunate phrase ‘pub team’, but it’s difficult when you’re so angry and facing the media so quickly after games.

“When you look at the Peterborough game (7-1) it was probably five minutes of madness which cost us that game, whereas at Burnley we were abject – there is no other way to describe it.

“It was a long old night and I think the players were embarrassed about their performance. I felt for the supporters who had travelled all that way only to be given a performance that wasn’t befitting of the players we’ve got.

“As a group, on that night, we were rubbish. Hopefully we’ve put that behind us and we won’t be getting any more of those performances.”

Town started that night with a diamond midfield formation of Mark Kennedy, Lee Bowyer, Jimmy Bullard and Keith Andrews.

But the big names failed to turn up during a 90 minutes when only keeper Arran Lee-Barrett came away with any credit.

Jewell said: “I think when you look at the midfield that night it was probably the oldest midfield ever.

“That doesn’t mean to say it was just because of the age of the team we put out, but from back-to-front, start-to-finish, we were totally outfought.

“Sometimes you do get outplayed, but to be outfought and to not show enough desire was the thing that hurt me most.”

Reflecting on the heavy defeat, Bowyer, who was hauled off at half-time, added: “That hurt him (Jewell) and everyone at the club so we need to go out there and show a different side to our game.

“They had it far too easily at their place. Too many people played badly but we will be trying to put that right.”

Fortunately, Jewell is able to reflect on the positives before tonight’s difficult match as Town look to make it five straight home wins at Portman Road.

And he has demanded that his players keep the run going with another three points moving them eight off the play-off places.

While a top-six finish remains unlikely due to the number of teams between them and the coveted play-off zone, the Town boss said: “We just have to take each and every game that comes and try to be the best we can be.

“We don’t want the season to finish because there is still an awful lot to play for. You never know what could happen above or beneath us.

“We want to finish as high as possible. We’ve got good momentum at the minute and we want that to continue.”