Come Fly With Me

ITFC v QPR 11th January 2014

A sunny day at Portman Road for a change

A brick in the wall for Max one day?

35 year old Alan Lee named on the bench v QPR's multi million pound squad - fairplay league in action ?

Strange looking bunch!

This was a good game of football - especially the first forty-five minutes, but as we have seen a couple of times already this season, Ipswich aren't quite good enough to win against the top teams in the championship. Don't get me wrong, we competed well against QPR, the leagues big earners, who included Joey Barton, Niko Kranjcar, Yossi Benayoun, Benoit Assou-Ekotto, Charlie Austin and of course the Town fan's "favourite" goalkeeper, Robert Green in their starting line up.

If we had of converted one of our first half chances then I might be taking a more positive view. The game had the feel of whoever scores first, wins and so it proved.

Kranjcar gave the visitors the lead seven minutes into the second half when he took on three Town defenders before tucking the ball into the corner of the net. Gary O'Neil scored a second goal, fourteen minutes later, he netted a loose ball after Gerken could only parry Austin's fierce shot.

Rangers sub Armand Traore scored the Hoops' third goal in the seventy-fourth minute, following a mistake by Tommy Smith to put the result beyond any doubt. Smith did however redeem himself in the ninetieth minute scoring a cracking goal from the edge of the box from Stephen Hunt's corner. If that have been the match winning goal we would all be talking about it for years to come.

Alan Lee, now aged Thirty five was included on the bench for Town, every time he came to stretch by the North Stand the fans started singing the Spandau Ballet song "Gold". It's not that long ago that he got booed equally as loud as Robert Green did today, when visiting Portman Road. He went to Norwich on loan, whilst a Crystal Palace player, how forgiving we are!

The 120 Fortuna Blues fans from Dusseldorf still singing, long after the final whistle

Ipswich 1-3 QPR
Smith 90                        Kranjcar 52
                                        O'Neil 66
                                        Traore 74
Att: 18,369

The playlist

Come Fly With Me by Frank Sinatra - QPR who are being bank rolled by Air Asia owner Tony Fernandes had that little bit of quality and class that should see them promoted back to the Premier League.
I resisted Gold by Spandau Ballet - I'm not a fan of them or Alan Lee!