Ipswich Town End clash with Preston North provides Blues a benchmark test
Ipswich Town face Preston North End in their final match before the October international break, giving them a chance to extend their lead on the chasing pack. Alex Jones previews the action.
This match has been marked on many people’s calendars for quite a while.
Preston were top of the Championship as recently as September 23rd, but Town have strung together a number of impressive performances to overtake them. Nonetheless, it’s clear that these are two very good sides with crystal clear aims of challenging at the top end of the table.
This will be a match between two of the three early pacesetters, with both teams determined to show that their hot form isn’t just a flash in the pan. That doesn’t seem to be the case from Town’s perspective, but there are certainly a few doubts creeping in at Deepdale.
It sets the scene for a fascinating clash this afternoon – one which could define both teams’ start to the campaign.
Almost everyone tipped Ipswich to do well this season, so their early form, while massively impressive, isn’t a huge surprise. That being said, not many people predicted them to be in the top two for the October international break, which will be the case regardless of today’s result.
Preston are in a slightly different boat as a side that have steadily maintained their Championship status for a number of years. Since winning promotion from League One in 2015, they’ve finished no lower than 14th and no higher than seventh in the second tier.
Ryan Lowe was appointed as manager in December 2021, which was seen as an exciting and a progressive appointment. He impressed during his time at Plymouth Argyle, using a solid back five while also implementing an exciting brand of attacking football.
Yet to see them at the top end of the division is a bit of a surprise, albeit that they’ve often started well and quickly fallen away. They sat at the summit after a 2-1 home win against Birmingham, which nobody really expected to happen at the seven-game mark.
It’s all gone wrong since then. Whether the players got too big for their boots or whether their sharp decline was natural given their comparatively easy fixtures, but the catalyst seemed to be a 1-1 draw away at struggling Rotherham United, who have just five points to their name at the time of writing.
The Lilywhites then went on to suffer a 4-0 thrashing at home to West Brom before falling to a 3-0 defeat on the road at Leicester City.
Losing consecutive games by an aggregate scoreline of 7-0 will do them no favours ahead of a long trip to Suffolk. It’s been a tough week for them already, and Town will be hoping to make it a whole lot worse.
Strangely enough, these two sides met in pre-season. Despite being based at opposite ends of the country, Ipswich made the long slog up to Lancashire for a midweek game, winning 2-1.
Aside from the astonishing win against RB Leipzig in Innsbruck, it was Town’s best pre-season performance by far. Conor Chaplin’s trademark opener showed that he was keen to pick up where he left off at the end of last season, while George Hirst came in for his first minutes since rejoining the club on a permanent basis, scoring the second goal with a lovely chip over the goalkeeper.
Their late consolation goal from Felipe Rodriguez-Gentile was scrappy, but the 16-year-old was one of their best players despite coming off the bench late on. It prompted supporters to ask for Lowe to ‘play the kids’ instead of the first-team squad, with many worried that their poor pre-season form would translate into the Championship campaign.
It did not, and that’s why we shouldn’t read into anything that happens in pre-season.
It feels like a weekly section in our pre-match previews, but once again, Kieran McKenna has some tough decisions to make.
It starts at the back. Vaclav Hladky was arguably Town’s best player in September, but last season’s first-choice goalkeeper, Christian Walton, has recovered from his plantar fascia injury. He made the bench for Tuesday’s win against Hull City, and a decision will need to be made as to whether or not he’ll come back into the lineup any time soon.
Further forward, George Edmundson put in a huge shift against Hull, marking Liam Delap within an inch of his life. It was, however, a tactical decision to drop Cameron Burgess from the squad, meaning that the Australia international could return to face Preston this afternoon. Harry Clarke has been preferred on the right side, but Brandon Williams’ recent performances will make it hard to take him out of the starting lineup.
The biggest dilemma comes out wide. Wes Burns and Nathan Broadhead are usually chosen to flank Chaplin, but Omari Hutchinson has been knocking on the door throughout September with stellar performances against Southampton and Wolves. Marcus Harness is another contender, having registered one goal and three assists in his last two starts. It’s fair to say that Ipswich are blessed with significant depth.
East Anglian Daily Times: Kieran McKenna will be without five first-team players during the international break
Kieran McKenna will be without five first-team players during the international break (Image: Pagepix Limited)
An eye on the internationals
Yep, that’s right, yet another international break. Town have five players heading away in the next two weeks, while the rest of the squad will be given some time to recover.
Burns, Broadhead (both Wales), Burgess, Massimo Luongo (both Australia) and Cieran Slicker (Scotland under-21’s) have all been called up. Skipper Sam Morsy was a surprise exclusion from Egypt’s squad, having made the preliminary list for their training camp.
Some players might need their minutes to be managed. This counts for Burns and Broadhead in particular, who’ve both struggled with injuries in the last few weeks.
Aside from that, it provides the Blues with a chance to reflect. As a best-case scenario, if they beat Preston and Sunderland fail to beat Middlesbrough, McKenna’s men will sit eight points clear of third place after 11 games, which would be simply astonishing.
The manager is adamant that he won’t focus on the table, however, so the performances will take priority. It’s hard to find many criticisms from that perspective, as Ipswich have been playing at an incredibly high level in every single game so far this season.
Of course, maintaining that will be key. It starts with Preston today, before moving on to a Friday night trip to Rotherham United after the international break.