The neutral would have loved that

Jim Magilton had seen his side go two in front in the first nine minutes before having to settle for one point, their first on the road this season. However, he was far from happy at the late decision to disallow a goal that, had it been given, would have seen Ipswich take all three points.

"It was a shocking decision and it has cost us points," he said. "How he can give offside is beyond me. It wasn't even close, Pablo is behind the ball by three or four yards and won a straight race."

Despite his anger at the decision he felt that a point was well deserved, adding: "It was a very good performance away from home. It was the pattern of our season when we played very well and scored two very good goals, but again in the patter of the season we fell asleep and let them back in.

"Gray has charged the ball down from our goalkeeper's clearance and it could have gone anywhere, but it is our luck that it ended up in the net, but we played some decent football before letting them back into the match. Looking at the ninety minutes overall, we were certainly worth a point."

Steve Cotterill again saw his side start slowly, this time conceding twice in the first nine minutes of the game. "The lads showed great character, but I don't want to see that character when we are two goals down," he said. "I want it from minute one because if we show the same determination before they score a goal we will win the game. The neutral would have loved that tonight because it was a good game of football with some great passing from both teams, but results tarnish some of that good football."

Cotterill was concerned about their system with Legwinksi, Garvan and Miller in the midfield. "We could have stopped that by playing Dave Unsworth in there and playing 4-5-1," he added. "But then everybody would have moaned about not having two up front.

"The only way you can get around it is by dropping into a diamond and I didn't think that going there was a way we were going to win the game tonight. We needed to get the ball wide, where we would have conjured our opportunities, and one of our goals from.

"All in all I think we could have won the game because their 'keeper has pulled off a couple of great saves. We just have to start better, but there are a couple of people in the dressing room who are probably having steep learning curves and when you go and lose a couple of six footers in Chris McCann and Michael Duff, and change your midfield around, you have to move on from that.

"The trouble is at the moment that everybody expects us to win. When we are the underdogs, the crowd are lifting the roof off and against West Brom they do that because they know we are up against us. Well, we wer were up against it against Ipswich and it is doubly difficult when you lose a couple of soft goals."