TEENAGE DREAMS SO HARD TO BEAT Ipswich kids earn a point
IPSWICH Town manager Paul Lambert praised his teenage stars after a battling draw against high-flying Sheffield United.
The youngsters helped Ipswich hang on in a contest that Alan Knill, the Sheffield United assistant manager, said his team “dominated”.
Town remain firmly rooted to the bottom of the Championship table despite picking up the point.
Goals came from Ellis Harrison for the home side in the 38th minute, with Billy Sharp replying for the visitors in the 47th minute.
Lambert said: “Sheffield are as good a team as I’ve seen so far in the short time that I have been here.
“All credit to my own team. We are a really young side with so much inexperience. I’m delighted with their application and the enthusiasm. We try to play a game against a really good side and towards the end it could have gone either way.
“It was a huge point for us. If you look at our team: Dozzell, Lankester, Chalobah – 18-to19-year-olds. I’d love to know if there’s another team in the division with that number of players at that age.
“The midfield is so inexperienced it’s not true. Dozzell shows great desire. Chaobah is going to be an exceptional player. We are getting there, slowly but surely.”
Town took the lead against the run of play.
A mix-up in the Sheffield defence led to the ball falling to Freddie Sears wide on the left. He found Harrison, who carried into the box, where his right-footed shot took a slight deflection off John Egan to fly into the back of the net past a motionless Dean Henderson. Lambert said that Harrison’s goal was a “fantastic” strike and added: “It was brilliant.”
Two minutes into the second half, a right-wing cross by Oliver Norwood found Sharp inside the six-yard area and he headed firmly past Town keeper Dean Gerken.
Knill said: “We dominated the game from start to finish. We had a dodgy five or six minutes after they scored but, apart from that, we were pretty much in control really. The only thing that was missing was a clinical finish at the end of it.
“Thankfully, Billy was on the end of a great ball to get us back in the game at one-all. To be honest, I thought that we were going to win the game from there, but it wasn’t to be.”
Both sides had goals disallowed. In the 18th minute, Sharp had the ball in the net following a free-kick by Northern Ireland international Ol-rasping iver Norwood, but was ruled offside.
Luke Chambers then thought he had scored in the 35th minute following a corner by Jon Nolan, but the Town centre-back and captain was ruled to have committed a foul by referee Andy Woolmer.
Sheffield dominated play as the game entered the final 15 minutes, but the closest they came to grabbing a winner was when Clarke put his header over the Ipswich bar and the inexperienced home side held on for a valuable point. DEFENDER Ondrej Mazuch is focused on securing a starting berth for the forseeable future at Hull City after making his first start of the season for the Tigers.
The 29-year-old Czech was named in Nigel Adkins’ starting XI against Brentford after limited chances this term after a knee injury he sustained in pre-season training saw him make only three substitute appearances.
However, with injuries to Reece Burke and Jordy de Wijs, Mazuch was given the nod in central defence alongside Tommy Elphick against the Bees.
“It was my first start for four or five months and I felt good throughout the game,” he said.
“I felt good before because I played some minutes against Millwall, QPR and Bolton so my confidence was higher and I was happy to start.
“It’s always difficult when you’re injured and you cannot play. It has been different injuries each time, but now I am fit and I hope I can stay healthy and play as many games as possible in order to help my team-mates pick up more positive results.”
Mazuch is keen to build on recent performances, too, as Hull look to move even further clear of the bottom three.
“We were compact and very strong defensively,” he added.