since 1878

Ipswich Town (1) 1 - 2 (2) Preston North End

Coca-Cola Championship 2008-09

Saturday, August 9, 2008

Referee: P Taylor

Manager: Jim Magilton

Portman Road 15:00

Attendance: 22,307

Manager: Alan Irvine

Match Number: 3258

Goals

Home
 Kevin Lisbie (2)
Away
 McKenna (21)
 Whaley (34)

Substitutions

Away
MellorHawley (80)

Cards

Home
 
Away
 Mellor (69)

Teams

Away

Lonergan

St Ledger

Mawene

Davidson

Chaplow

Sedgwick

Nicholson

Whaley

McKenna

Jones

Mellor

Substitutes

Away

Neal

Hart

Carter

Wallace

Hawley

Match Report

Ipswich 1-2 Preston

Promotion hopefuls Ipswich Town got the new campaign off to the worst possible start with defeat at home to Preston North End.

Last year's promotion push was underpinned by a superb home record and Jim Magilton was seething after a sloppy 10 minutes of schoolboy defending cost his side maximum points at Portman Road.

He moaned: "Because of our fantastic home record last year, some of our lads thought automatically it would just happen again and we got punished for a sloppy 10 minutes"

"You can't afford to switch off - we did and got punished twice, the second goal was schoolboy stuff"

"Our better players should have dominated the game and we start off with a defeat, maybe that's the wake up call they all need."

The afternoon started well for the home side when new boy Kevin Lisbie headed home from close range after two minutes following a neat cross from Danny Haynes.

That should have set the tone for the rest of the game but Ipswich failed to capitalise on their early advantage.

Preston somehow got back into the game in the 21st minute when Chris Sedgewick squared the ball to skipper Paul Mckenna whose brilliant strike thundered past keeper Richard Wright, on his second home debut for Ipswich after his move from West Ham.

On 34 minutes Preston took the lead - a combination of Ipswich falling asleep and quick thinking from McKenna freed Billy Jones down the right.

His low cross gave Simon Whaley a simple tap in from four yards.

Substitute Alan Lee nearly made an instant impact as he found himself with time and space in the box but his shot on 75 minutes just bent round the far post.

Preston had an awful start to last season but have got off to a flyer at Portman Road.

Boss Alan Irvine was delighted with his teams response to such an early setback in the game.

He said: "We've laid a few ghosts to rest, our season started at quarter past three and then we played well and scored two good goals.

"It's a magnificent result for us. It's a hard place to come - and their record here last season was outstanding and will be so again this season."

Warren Haughton (sundaymirror.co.uk)

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