The West Stand Senior on Town vs Aston Villa

Pre-match thoughts

I wasn’t sure what to expect from this game. Villa were seemingly on a roll, and the rumour was that their fans were feeling buoyant. But I felt strangely optimistic, and this attitude appeared to be echoed by other fans I spoke to before the game got underway.

The atmosphere in the ground before the match was one of excited expectancy, only sobered by the tribute to longstanding secretary and Town stalwart David Rose.

Sadly, in the thirteenth minute of the first half, we also paid tribute to Taylen Ireton. The teenager played for Wivenhoe Town Football Club's under-14s and was an avid Ipswich Town fan.

First half

Ipswich moved with purpose from the kickoff, and the crowd was on their feet within 8 minutes. A move started with a great ball from Phillips to Clarke, directed to the feet of the incoming Delap, who made no mistake in squeezing it past a diving Martinez.

Aston Villa equalised in the 15th minute, so the game was back to even. I'm sure Greaves will have nightmares about his clearance, so enough said about that. He is generally solid in defence and will learn from this game.

Town battled hard against a slightly more dominant opponent but couldn't prevent Ollie Watkins from giving Villa the lead in the 32nd minute.

Martinez kept Villa ahead with clever footwork from a Delap drive and deflected a rocketing strike from Phillips to keep the away team ahead at the break.

Second half

Town came out all guns blazing and had the better chances in this half.

Delap converted one of these into a brilliantly worked individual goal in the 72nd minute – back to honours even.

A tense moment for us was the suspicion of a possible second yellow for Morsy, which fortunately did not transpire.

At the end of the game, Ipswich was very much in control. Carlos was not controlling their pushes on the wing at all, and corner after corner followed corner with the crowd roaring. The last Ipswich corner of the game in added time was a heart-stopper, with two or three attempts to net from the goal mouth somehow scrambled away…2-2 was the final score.

Round up

It was a cracker! It's the best and tightest we have played this season so far.

To put this game in context, it didn’t ‘feel’ very much different from many of those we played last season. Our ‘Imposter Syndrome’ is abating, and the players are beginning to settle.

There is no doubt we could have won this game, and the players battled to the bitter end as always—not content with a draw but striving for a win with everything they had to the (not so bitter) end.

There is no doubt we were a whisker away from winning this game.

It brought to mind my favourite quote from a TV pundit commenting on the late goal last week – when he said Southampton forgot to make allowance for the ‘Tractor Factor’. I love that epithet.

I felt inordinately proud of our players, Kieran, Mark, Gamechanger, our supporters all over the world, and, of course, all the many others who contributed to making the club as influential as it is today.

Man of the match

I find a ‘man of the match’ difficult in the close-knit team Ipswich are becoming (there’s no ‘I’ in team yada yada), so below are my players of the match.

For Ipswich: Delap, Clarke, Phillips, Davis, Morsy, Hutchinson.

For Aston Villa: Watkins and Martinez.

View from the train

Quiet contentment invaded the train, with some fans declaring they felt the result was a ‘win’ for Town. Unlike two dispirited-sounding Aston Villa fans who were heard saying, “We’re playing Bayern Munich on Wednesday, and we only manage a draw against Ipswich?”