Burgess blasts Ipswich past Coventry to within a point of the Premier League
Cameron Burgess celebrates with teammates after scoring Ipswich’s winner against Coventry. Photograph: Catherine Ivill/AMA/Getty Images
What a difference a few days makes. After witnessing his Ipswich side squander the lead for the third time with a few minutes to spare at Hull last Friday, Kieran McKenna punched the window pane in the away dugout but here the full-time scenes were of unfiltered joy. Ipswich are so close to promotion they can probably smell the gloss of the Premier League, spy its bells and whistles.
There was simply no better time for Ipswich to return to winning ways, this victory their first in five matches after taking six points from their previous five matches. Whatever happens from here, it has been an outstanding campaign for Ipswich, who were celebrating promotion from League One this time last season.
The permutations are not quite so complex anymore: if Ipswich avoid defeat at home to Huddersfield, a team already resigned to relegation, they will return to the top flight after a 22-year hiatus, regardless of how second-placed Leeds fare at home to Southampton. Coventry, almost everyone’s second team when they fought back against Manchester United in the FA Cup semi-final nine days ago, appeared obliging hosts.
In the minutes before kick-off Ipswich’s travelling fans bobbed to the sound of various dance anthems – Just Can’t Get Enough and Freed from Desire, naturally – and their singalong continued long into the night.
McKenna promised his side would embrace the challenge of being able to take a giant step towards promotion in this rearranged match and if Ipswich’s players, in their all-orange away strip, were feeling the pressure, it certainly did not show.
Ipswich began on the front foot and a slick move that started with the left-back Leif Davis taking a throw-in midway inside his own half and culminated with the busy Wes Burns zooming down the right and forcing a panicked Coventry clearance.
Ipswich cut Coventry open in seconds. Within eight minutes they had earned the lead. Burns nipped in behind Jay Dasilva and pulled the ball back for his Wales teammate Kieffer Moore to bury a low shot into the Coventry net. That sparked delirium in the away end, where 2,539 supporters went ballistic.
McKenna high-fived his staff from the comfort of his technical area – assistant Martyn Pert, first-team coach Lee Grant, who followed him from Manchester United, and goalkeeper coach Rene Gilmartin – but he surely could not look past the haze of celebrating fans in the distance. Everything was going swimmingly for Ipswich, then, but the impressive Ben Sheaf’s rasping shot from distance, which flew just over, prompted McKenna to ask questions of his defence.
Coventry, beset by injuries and fatigue, began poorly but soon after falling behind they woke from their slumber and came agonisingly close to an equaliser. Milan van Ewijk cut the ball back from the right and Kasey Palmer saw a shot cannon off Sam Morsy, the Ipswich captain, and pinball towards Burns, who managed to clear the ball off the line.
Haji Wright got to the rebound but Ipswich’s goalkeeper, Vaclav Hladky, instinctively pushed his effort over with both hands. The Coventry striker Ellis Simms also spooned over a first-time effort with half-time looming.
That, however, was not the final chance of the half and Nathan Broadhead spurned a chance to establish a two-goal buffer in stoppage time. Burns stole possession from Dasilva, drove forward and then picked out an unmarked Broadhead lurking at the back post.
But Broadhead, one of three Wales players in the Ipswich starting lineup, failed to generate enough power on his header and Bradley Collins, the Coventry goalkeeper, managed to keep his effort out.
Coventry continued to crank up the pressure, Josh Eccles smacking a bouncing ball into the side netting within a couple of minutes of the restart. Moore sent a header wide from a Davis corner and then Broadhead cracked a shot against the crossbar after seizing on Collins’s wayward pass out from goal.
Just as McKenna readied a double substitution, with Jeremy Sarmiento and George Hirst replacing Broadhead and Moore, Coventry levelled. Palmer threaded a pass through for Wright, who eluded George Edmundson, took a touch and then fired in under Hladky, who should have done better. McKenna screwed up his face on the sidelines but Ipswich quickly regained the lead.
Collins was alert to prevent Sarmiento scoring with his first touch and then Sarmiento, after a magical piece of control, slipped in Hirst but he also failed to beat the Coventry goalkeeper. Ipswich under McKenna, however, seem to have a knack for finding a way through, staying in the fight, be it beautiful or ugly.
Five minutes after conceding, Ipswich re-established their one-goal advantage. Davis looped a free-kick high towards the back post, triggering jeers from the home support, but Cameron Burgess won the first header before a scrap ensued. Edmundson ended up in a heap on the turf, tangled with Joel Latibeaudiere but Burgess stayed alive, transferred the ball on to his left foot and sent a deflected shot in off a post.