Wednesday’s promotion hopes were brought sharply into question with a worryingly weak performance and defeat against a distinctly average Ipswich side at Hillsborough today.
As with so many games at S6 this season, we began the match far too slowly and, on this occasion, never got out of first gear.
As expected, we dominated against a struggling Ipswich side but rarely threatened the visitors and they went ahead on 34 minutes, Tom Lawrence gaining possession from Jack Hunt inside his own half and then racing through to fire expertly past Keiren Westwood from the edge of the box.
We were back on level terms within three minutes when Bartosz Bialkowski parried David Jones’ effort and Gary Hooper pounced on the rebound to equalise from six yards.
Wednesday might have gone ahead straight after half-time when the keeper could only push out Hooper’s effort but Kieran Lee’s follow-up screwed wide of the post and then Steven Fletcher headed over when well placed from Hunt’s right-wing cross.
Ipswich threatened occasionally in the closing stages and. with three minutes left, Wednesday’s poor afternoon got worse when Christophe Berra’s header from Grant Ward’s free kick was going well wide but struck the head of team-mate Luke Chambers and deflected into the corner of Westwood’s net for a fluke winner.
The defeat sees us drop to tenth place, two points away from the play-offs and 10 points behind second-placed Brighton, and Carlos Carvalhal will be more concerned at the nature of this performance in terms of the lack of energy, aggression and creativity shown throughout the 90 minutes.
and, on this occasion, failed