Middlesbrough v Ipswich: Frustrated Blues boss Paul Jewell believes a kinder run of the ball would have seen his side win at the Riverside today rather than come away with a 2-0 defeat.

A sloppy Andy Drury was punished in the 34th minute, Luke Williams scoring the only goal of a very even first half.

Town then had the better of the second period, threw men forward in search of a late equaliser only to see substitute Mustapha Carayol net a killer second on the counter-attack in stoppage-time.

“I don’t think 2-0 tells the story of that game,” said Jewell. “I thought we were the better team, we just lacked the cutting edge in the box.

“We’ve produced lots of quality football, lots of good possession and dominated most of the match. We’ve had 17 shots on goal throughout the game, but we haven’t made their keeper work hard enough. That’s the reason we haven’t won the game.

“It was a sloppy ball in midfield (from Andy Drury) and the lad’s finished it well – you can’t take that away from him. We’ve got good possession in the middle of the park, we lose it and the next thing we’re a goal down.

“We piled forward in the second half, they were trying to hit us on the break, but we kept going, we tried to keep playing, but the ball just didn’t drop for us in the box.

“I’m not one to blame bad luck, but today I feel like the bounce of the ball just didn’t go our way.

“We brought on fresh legs late on and I thought everyone played their part.

“Okay, you look at the result and we’ve lost 2-0, but you’ve got to look deeper than the result at this stage of the season – seriously.

“I thought some of our play was excellent and if we’d have come away with a point we’d have still probably been disappointed, so to lose we are doubly disappointed.”

– See Monday’s EADT and Ipswich Star for more reaction.