First half double sees Ipswich take the points

A disappointing afternoon ended in defeat at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium on Sunday as Ipswich Town collected their first Premier League win of the season thanks to a 2-1 victory.

The visitors scored twice in the first half through Sam Szomdics and Liam Delap to put themselves in a commanding position and, although we’d fought back to win our previous three league home matches after conceding first, there was to be no repeat this time around.

Rodrigo Bentancur halved the deficit with a header in the 69th minute, but we didn’t put the Ipswich goal under enough pressure in the closing stages and they held out for the first Premier League win since April, 2002. We ended the weekend 10th in the table, albeit just three points off the top four.

It was a lively opening to the game with three chances in the opening three minutes, Szmodics forcing a save out of Guglielmo Vicario at his near post, Omari Hutchinson’s header diverted wide from the resulting corner before Brennan Johnson poked Heung-Min Son’s tempting cross just past the post.

Ipswich – managed by our former Academy graduate and Under-18s coach Kieran McKenna – then hit the crossbar, Cameron Burgess heading Leif Davis’ corner against the woodwork while, at the other end, Son wriggled through three defenders on the edge of the area only to see his shot saved by Arijanet Muric.

In the 19th minute, a lovely ball from Cristian Romero found Dominic Solanke, the forward controlling the ball before striking a clean shot which Muric tipped away at his near post with the Ipswich goalkeeper then down quickly five minutes later after Johnson’s cross flicked off Davis and was creeping in.

But it was the visitors with the breakthrough just after the half-hour mark, Jens Cajuste’s cross coming off the head of Romero and falling for Szmodics to produce an overhead kick into the bottom corner. And it was 2-0 shortly before the interval as we were punished by a swift counter-attack, Davis playing in Szmodics down the left, his low cross was parried by Vicario onto Radu Dragusin leaving Delap the chance to slam the ball into the net from virtually on the goal-line.

Trailing 2-0 at the break, we needed a fast start to the second half and had the ball in the net inside three minutes, Solanke firing in from a corner only for VAR to intervene and rule it out for a handball by our number 19 after he’d kicked the ball. We were well on top at that stage, dominating possession and pushing Ipswich back but not really testing Muric, with Solanke and Son hitting long-range efforts that flew just over the bar. However we were back in the game in the 69th minute with a straightforward goal in the end, Pedro Porro’s out-swinging corner met by a powerful header from Bentancur to give us renewed hope.

Substitute Timo Werner had a chance with six minutes left but blazed well over the bar from the edge of the area having been teed up by Son, while we were presented with a great chance to level five minutes into stoppage time, Solanke nicking the ball inside the area but was denied from a tight angle by Muric’s leg and with it went our last hope of salvaging anything from the contest.

Match data

Goals: Spurs – Bentancur 69; Ipswich – Szmodics 31, Delap 43.

Yellow cards: Spurs – Bentancur; Ipswich – Tuanzebe, Delap, Johnson, Davis, Hutchinson.

Referee: Darren England.

Venue: Tottenham Hotspur Stadium.

Weather: Light cloud, light winds, 11 degrees.

Attendance: 61,505.