Ipswich v Burnley: Blues boss Mick McCarthy says today’s 1-0 home defeat to Burnley shows there is not much difference in quality between his team and those at the top-of-the-table.

The Clarets remain at the summit of the Championship after Scott Arfield’s 80th minute header sealed a hard-fought 1-0 win at Portman Road, their 12th in 15 matches across all competitions this season.

Ipswich remain 11th in the table, seven points adrift of the play-off places and 14 behind the league leaders, as they suffered their fourth single-goal defeat of the campaign.

“They were no more accomplished than us,” said McCarthy. “They just had a Johnny on the spot who took his chance. I don’t think there was anything in the game.

“You only get what you deserve though. I thought they defended their goal better than we did for 90-odd minutes because we just let our guard down a little bit.

“I thought it looked like a goalless draw coming up, but we made three or four tiny little errors, we let the cross come in and we didn’t defend it either. It’s cost us.”

He continued: “I thought we played well, I was delighted with how we played. Were they that much better than us? I don’t think so. But they put the ball in the back of the net.

“We played against the two most in-form strikers in the league (Sam Vokes and Danny Ings) and our two centre-backs (Tommy Smith and Christophe Berra) have been different class, they’ve not given them too many sniffs.

“They defended well. Apart from the goal, we did too. That’s the key though ‘apart from the goal’. That’s the only thing that flipping counts.

“If it was us that scored I’d be saying it was a good run, a good cross, a good header – all that stuff. So fair play to them. It’s tiny little things, tiny detail that’s cost us.”

Burnley boss Sean Dyche said: “I thought they had the better end of the first half, but yet again our framework made us solid enough not to concede.

“There wasn’t many chances for either team, but the general feel of the game was that they had the upper hand.

“Second half it levelled out, there were pockets of good play from ourselves, but you’re watching thinking ‘is it going to be one of those days?’

“I thought it was fine moment of quality, a very good cross and a very good header.”

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