Lucas Joao’s 89th minute strike at bottom club Ipswich gave Steve Bruce a winning start to his managerial career at Wednesday … and that was after watching us miss a handful of chances to take control of the match.
The goal came when Adam Reach took Michael Hector’s pass in his stride, cut in from the right wing and pulled the ball back for sub Joao to calmly sidefoot home from eight yards.
In a low-key first half, we had three good openings but failed to take advantage against a rock bottom Ipswich side clearly low on confidence.
Stephen Fletcher saw his close-range effort blocked by home keeper Bartosz Bialkowski when he probably should have scored, Adam Reach miscued horribly from six yards out when unmarked – and possibly offside – and then the recalled Fernando Forestieri headed over the top.
All in all, we had 11 shots in the first half while Ipswich mustered just three attempts but none on target.
The home side looked a little livelier after the break but Forestieri missed our best chance of the game just after the hour mark, pouncing on a loose ball in the box but firing over the bar.
Ipswich also missed a good opening 15 minutes from time when Alan Judge shot high and wide and then Keiren Westwood saved Trevoh Chalobah’s header at the second attempt – the home side’s first effort on target after 82 minutes.
However, just when it looked like an afternoon of frustration in front of goal for Wednesday, Joao struck close to time to see us take three points and keep us in 16th place on 38 points.