Ipswich Town beat Cambridge United 3-0 at Portman Road last night. STUART WATSON reflects on the action.

STAYING PATIENT

There was horrible sense of déjà vu as this match reached the 70th minute mark still goalless.

Back in April, Ipswich were on a real high after a 1-0 home win against Plymouth. A few days later Cambridge came to Portman Road, parked the bus and nicked a 1-0 win to flatten the mood.

Now, three days after Town's morale-boosting 3-2 home win against Portsmouth, the U's were back in Suffolk motivated to play the role of party poopers again.

The pattern of this game was set very early on. Cambridge, as is absolutely their right, sat deep and remained organised. Ipswich had around 75% possession, they pressed and probed, looked to pull the opposition out of shape and mixed up their lines of attack. The final pass or cross didn't quite come off though. And when chances were forged, Freddie Ladapo's firm header flew just wide, Leif Davis' downward header was kept out and Conor Chaplin could only find the side-netting on the stretch.

It's not that Ipswich were playing badly. Far from it. Cambridge were just proving tough nuts to crack.

The tempo dropped a little after the restart. A bumper midweek crowd of 26,414 went a little flat. Cambridge keeper Dimitar Mitov started to take longer and longer over restarts.

Then Kieran McKenna turned to his bench...

ROLES REVERSED

Tyreece John-Jules had started as the central striker in the previous game against Portsmouth. After working really hard for the team, he made way for Freddie Ladapo and the latter got the headlines by scoring with his first touch.

This time, it was roles reversed.

Ladapo may not have been able to keep up his scoring streak, but, for me, this was his best game in a Town shirt.

The 29-year-old backed into centre-halves, charged back to make tackles and constantly made runs in behind. He'd done a fine job of softening up the away defence.

John-Jules came on for Conor Chaplin as part of triple change in the 66th minute and had an instant impact.

When Marcus Harness' cross deflected fortuitously off a defender's heel and up over the keeper, the Arsenal loanee was left with a simple far post finish.

Deadlock finally broken. Relief all round. Cambridge's stubborn resistance had been worn down by sheer persistence. Now, needing to chase the game against fresh legs, they were bang in trouble.

A second goal soon followed and Ladapo was withdrawn, replaced by Kayden Jackson, to a standing ovation.

KYLE'S SMILE

Dominic Ball, who had been handed his full league debut, and Wes Burns were the other two players to make way as part of that triple substitution not long after the hour mark. Lee Evans and Kyle Edwards were the two to replace them.

Town instantly benefitted from Evans' vision in the middle of the park. It was his forward pass which led to John-Jules' goal.

Then it became the Edwards show.

Did he mean to pick out the far top corner with his whipped left-footed strike of the ball from deep right? I don't think so. McKenna's post-match answer to that question - "he says no comment!" - confirms as much.

There was certainly nothing flukey about Edwards' second though. He showed great desire to get to a loose ball in the box first and then supply a gorgeous outside of boot finish under pressure.

An infectious smile. A little dance. The joyous reaction of his team-mates and the crowd spoke volumes about how popular this man is.

Edwards, who looked so electric in his early days as an Ipswich player, had become something of a forgotten man over the last few months. First, McKenna playing with two No.10s left him without a natural role in the side. Then, in February, he suffered a season-ending quad injury.

Injuries to Sone Aluko, Greg Leigh and Gassan Ahadme has lessened the traffic in his way though. McKenna moving more towards a 4-2-3-1 than a 3-4-2-1 has also helped his cause.

"I'm delighted for him," said the Blues. "But he'll be the first to say, I'm sure, that's it's about pushing on now. Hopefully he can do that, start to fulfil some of his talent and be a really important player for us."


FORTRESS PORTMAN ROAD

This is yet another game we can file under 'Ipswich wouldn't have won this last season'.

The Blues, remarkably, are already 23 points up on like-for-like fixtures from 2021/22.

This is only the second time Town have won a quickfire home double header since the Championship play-off season of 2014/15.

That's now three straight league wins at Portman Road. Town's league record on home soil under McKenna reads an impressive: P17 W11 D5 L1 F30 A9.

There are two more games to come in operation 'Pack Out Portman Road' this month, of course. Following Saturday's trip to Morecambe, the Blues then host Lincoln City (Sat 15th) and Derby (Fri 21st).

Every home game is feeling like a real occasion these days.

GAP GROWS

Plymouth's stoppage-time winner against Sheffield Wednesday denied Town the chance to return to top spot.

What that result does mean, however, is that the gap to third has widened to four points. And a very healthy nine-point margin has grown to seventh.

Twenty-seven points from the opening 12 games equals Town's start to the 2019/20 season under Paul Lambert.

Back then, and this isn't being smart with hindsight, there was a growing feeling that performance levels hadn't quite matched the points return. The buzz phrase was 'and we've still clearly got a few gears to go through yet'. It turned out that wasn't the case.

This time you cannot argue that Ipswich don't fully deserve what they've got. In fact, they arguably deserve more.

Enjoy the ride people. Something special is brewing.