Relegation battle could still be on for woeful Town

IPSWICH Town could still find themselves embroiled in a relegation battle, if they don’t improve their miserable home form.

Paul Jewell’s men were again humbled on home turf, suffering their third straight Portman Road defeat at the hands of classy Watford.

A brace from Danny Graham, the Championship’s leading scorer with 25 goals in all competitions, and an injury-time strike from Don Cowie easily accounted for woeful Town.

Just one point gathered from the last four games is simply not good enough, and at the moment it is Town’s solid away form that is keeping them a healthy 12 points clear of the bottom three.

It is third-from-bottom Scunthorpe who are the visitors on Saturday, but if they don’t stop the rot against the Iron, then the alarm bells will start ringing.

Town boss Jewell was especially critical of his team’s lack of a killer instinct, in both boxes.

“We give goals away for fun,” rued Jewell.

“We probably had more possession than Watford, between the boxes, but do you really think we are going to score a goal?

“We just haven’t got anyone who wants to get on the end of all the crosses that have come into the box.

“We aren’t ruthless in either box, as simple as that.

“We did hit the post (Gareth McAuley header), but when the ball comes out from the post you don’t really think anyone is going to stick his head in and get a cut-eye. You can see we lack a bit of pace in the team. We can’t get beyond teams going forward, so we have got a lot of work to do.

“I don’t know what I’m going to get out of my players at the moment. They are very up and down, and very inconsistent.

“We’ve got lots to improve on, to be where we want to be. Too many players are hiding and we lose confidence too quickly. We need more inner-belief and steely determination,” added Jewell.

Watford are certainly Town’s bogey team. Town have not won any of the last 13 meetings between the two clubs, losing 10 of them.