Ipswich Town were agonisingly close to picking up their first three points of the Premier League campaign against Leicester City, only for the Foxes to rain on the Tractor Boys parade right at the death.
Jordan Ayew would end up being the Leicester player that would jab the dagger into Ipswich’s hearts, as the ex-Crystal Palace man managed to combine well with Jamie Vardy under pressure, before finishing confidently past an otherwise rock-solid Arijanet Muric who had made four saves in the game prior to this sucker punch strike.
Ipswich-Town
Ipswich will still be able to take away some positives from this crushing draw, particularly in the performance of standout defender Leif Davis who scored what he thought was going to be a dramatic winner early into the second 45 minutes, but Kalvin Phillips had another afternoon to forget for his new employers to further pile on the early misery of his loan spell.
Leif-Davis-Ipswich
Phillips wouldn’t even see out the full contest for Kieran McKenna’s men, as the ten men battled hard late on after his dismissal, but ultimately came up short in their mission to collect an elusive league win.
Phillips’ performance in numbers
The ex-Leeds United midfielder has found it tricky to acclimatise to his new surroundings at Portman Road, but McKenna has stood firm in his selection choices regarding his new number eight, who had started seven Premier League games in a row for Ipswich heading into this one.
Of course, this streak of starting games week in week out will now be broken owing to a suspension, as Phillips received his marching orders on the 77-minute mark for a high boot on Ricardo Pereira, which saw a second yellow card come his way.
Kalvin-Phillips-Ipswich
Away from some dubious refereeing decisions that got under the skin of both Phillips and McKenna, the 28-year-old did struggle in the game, with the Manchester City loanee squandering possession 14 times, on top of only winning five of his 13 duels in the contest.
Phillips’ suspension will allow his manager to think about alternatives in the holding midfield positions, alongside also now having food for thought as to who he should pick down the left wing, as Sammie Szmodics never got going against Steve Cooper’s men from down this flank.
Szmodics’ performance in numbers
It’s been an up-and-down ride for Szmodics since his arrival to Suffolk this summer, with an unbelievable start seeing him score a blistering strike away at Manchester City all the way back in August.
Sammie-Szmodics-Ipswich
He has backed that up since with another league strike in Ipswich’s recent frenetic 4-3 loss to Brentford in October, but the ex-Blackburn Rovers man was anonymous for large spells against Leicester when his team needed more creativity and flair to really push on to a first league win of the campaign.
Szmodics’ numbers vs Leicester
Stats by Sofascore
Szmodics saw the game pass him by all too often, as the likes of Conor Chaplin got far more joy just running at the Leicester defence from a central attacking midfield position, over laying it off to the Ipswich number 23 down the left.
As can be seen glancing at the table above, the Republic of Ireland international only mustered up 20 touches of the ball in the 1-1 draw – which was less than Muric’s count for the day at 34 – whilst also only registering a meagre six accurate passes, as Szmodics failed to leave his mark on the back-and-forth affair.
Sammie-Szmodics
He did manage to miss one big chance, which was his only shot of the afternoon, but McKenna must be tempted to change things up on the left wing after this quiet showing, with Jack Clarke one obvious option who is more of a natural down the left over Szmodics anyway.
McKenna will just pray whatever changes he does make for Ipswich’s next Premier League contest means a first league win of the season edges closer, but an away trip to Tottenham Hotspur will be an almighty challenge for his low on confidence group.
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