Ipswich Town vs Peterborough United 
Saturday 10th December 2022 – 12:30
Portman Road
Pre-Match Thoughts - Mike
Town are still sitting pretty in the League One Table following last Friday nights frustrating draw with Fleetwood Town at Portman Road, another game where we failed to build on an early lead was to prove as disappointing as those of the visits of Lincoln & Cheltenham earlier in the season, this time a wicked 96th minute deflection robbing Town of Two points and with it top spot in the division.
While our overall position is still very good and bang where we wanted to be at this time of the year just how much better could it actually be if we could learn to see games out or create more of the numerous chances we create ? While I am still more than confident we will win the division it is fair to say we could be sitting pretty with a handy gap between ourselves and our main rivals, Sheffield Wednesday continue to pick up points but they too failed to grasp the initiative when they could have gone top, while Plymouth are doing exactly what myself and a fair few others expected them to do as they succumbed to Port Vale at home, others in the chasing pack also continue to drop points at an alarming rate with Portsmouth & Peterborough Utd to name but Two coming unstuck again, it does look that even at this early stage the teams sitting 7, 8 or 9 points behind us will find it hard to get enough consistency into their play to catch us, especially as we would need to lose Three on the bounce which to be fair has never looked like happening.
Going into Christmas and the new year is always a crucial time for Football and it is a period which can define your season, a good haul of points would set us up very nicely indeed while a poor festive season could see us dragged back into the pack, unlikely but possible. With games against Peterborough (H), Wycombe (A), Oxford (H), Portsmouth (A) and Lincoln (H) I think Town could be forgiven for expecting to pick up double figures points wise which would be par for the course and acceptable given those set of fixtures, I would also expect it to see us remain in the automatic promotion places going into the second half of the campaign.
Going back to the Fleetwood game, while I was unable to attend or indeed watch the game it does appear we were some way off our usual performance, quite why that is is anyone's guess but it happens to all teams sometimes, maybe we are just starting to feel a little bit of the impact so many injuries are causing us lately, maybe expectation at Portman Road with big crowds does heap pressure on the players, while they should be good enough to deal with that, and used to it now, it can sometimes have a detrimental effect, or it could just simply nothing more than an off night, we haven't had many after all. We are now seven unbeaten and I believe we sit top of the current league One form table so there doesn't appear too much wrong right now, however it is vital we somehow get this stigma off our backs when it comes to getting the job done against mid to lower table teams at Portman Road.
We revert back to our traditional Saturday kick off this weekend, albeit at the earlier time of 12.30pm thanks to this blooming World Cup tripe, Peterborough Utd are the visitors on this occasion and they come on the back of a poor run of form, Three straight League defeats to Exeter City, Bristol Rovers & Barnsley plus elimination from Two cups in that time is not what was expected by the London Road faithful and while they still creep into the Top Six at the moment it has seen them drop further behind the leaders, Eleven points behind Town to be precise which as i have already stated will take some catching up, a win against the posh here would pretty much see us out of sight of them already and that has to be the aim.
With our defence very happy to gift teams goals at times coming up against a player of the calibre of Jonson Clarke-Harris does set alarm bells ringing, he is a goalscorer and given the chance will punish any team, he already sits on Twelve for the season and is clearly their man to watch, backing him up is a certain Jack Marriott who is well known to Town fans, Jack already has Six to his name so they form a potent spearhead to the Posh team. With Plymouth Argyle at Cambridge Utd & Sheffield Wednesday at Exeter City we have to do our bit at home, they are Two tricky ties and the league table could have a very favourable look to it come Saturday evening, providing of course we get this home jinx thing out of our system and get ourselves back to winning ways. I think we will, 2-1 Town. COYB'S
The Opposition – Peterborough United - Honours
League
Football League One
Runners up: 2008–09, 2020–21
Play-off Winners: 1991–92, 2010–11
Football League Two
Winners: 1960–61, 1973–74
Runners-up: 1990–91, 2007–08
Play-off Winners: 1999–2000
Midland League
Winners: 1939–40, 1955–56, 1956–57, 1957–58, 1958–59, 1959–60
Runners up: 1953–54
Cups
FA Cup
Quarter Final – 1964–65
Football League Cup
Semi-final – 1965–66
Football League Trophy
Winners : 2013–14
The Manager – Grant McCann
League Table as at
Form Guide
Ipswich Town
25 Oct Port Vale 2 - 3 Ipswich Town
29 Oct Charlton 4 - 4 Ipswich Town
12 Nov Ipswich Town 1 - 1 Cheltenham
19 Nov Exeter City 0 - 2 Ipswich Town
2 Dec Ipswich Town 1 - 1 Fleetwood
Peterborough United
25 Oct Peterborough 3 - 1 Accrington
29 Oct Peterborough 1 - 0 Cambridge Utd
12 Nov Exeter City 3 - 2 Peterborough
19 Nov Bristol Rovers 1 - 0 Peterborough
2 Dec Peterborough 1 - 2 Barnsley
Head to Head
Match Referee – Ollie Yates
IPSWICH TOWN 2 PETERBOROUGH UNITED 1
Everything was tripe to auld Charlie! Never heard that for years. 
, no great pace on the ball but placed to perfection.
