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Sunderland were one of the teams to pip them for a Premiership place but they have given a couple of their players the opportunity to play at the top level. Goalkeeper Kelvin Davis moved to the Stadium of Light for £1,250,000 and midfielder Tommy Miller followed him, joining his home town club.

Miller scored his first goal for Sunderland on Sunday, and that’s one more than striker Shefki Kuqi has scored, he moved to Blackburn in the summer but is still looking for his first goal for his new club.

That left some holes in Long Ball Joe Royle’s squad and he quickly moved to bring in strikers to cover for Bent and Kuqi. Nicky Forster signed after being released by Reading and he was joined by Swindon’s Sam Parkin who got both goals in their 2-0 win at Leeds on Saturday.

The only other permanent signing is midfielder Dean McDonald from Arsenal but Royle has also added some loan players. South African defender Mark Fish has been and gone but he currently has Jimmy Juan and Jay McEveley in his squad.

McEveley is well known to Burnley fans after a loan deal from Blackburn almost two years ago, Juan will be less known, the 22 year-old Frenchman is from Monaco. Ipswich must be something of a culture shock for him.

There’s been so much of a change at Portman Road and when youngster Danny Haynes came on as a substitute on Saturday he became the 11^th player to make a first team debut this season. I thought that was a lot until I considered the names of Thomas, Elliott, O’Connor, Noel-Williams, McCann, Lafferty, Bermingham, Spicer, Lowe and Harley, it is just how football is these days.

The season’s going reasonably well for them and they are currently in tenth place, just a couple of points behind the play off places.

There’s been no long journey for them today either, they have stayed in the Manchester area since the Leeds game and have been training at Radcliffe Borough’s ground.

Click HERE to see all Ipswich’s results this season.

There’ll be no surprises in Royle’s line up tonight, there’s the sixteen who were on duty at Leeds plus Matt Richards Jaime Peters who are expected to return via the bench after injury.

Nicky Forster is set to resume training this week but he cannot be considered for tonight’s game and that will mean our former loan player Dean Bowditch will play up front alongside Parkin.

So the Ipswich team will be something like:

Lewis Price, Castro Sito, Jason De Vos, Richard Naylor, Jay McEveley, Darren Currie, Jim Magilton, Kevin Horlock, Owen Garvan, Dean Bowditch, Sam Parkin. Subs from: Shane Supple, Fabian Wilnis, Dean McDonald, Jimmy Juan, Danny Haynes, Matt Richards, Jaime Peters.

Click HERE to see the full Ipswich squad.

There will be changes in the Burnley side from the team that drew with Brighton on Saturday. Brian Jensen will start in goal in place of the injured Danny Coyne and John McGreal is also very unlikely to play with his place almost certain to be taken by captain Frank Sinclair.

Much else will depend on whether Steve Cotterill wants to make changes and he does have the option of starting with one of if not both of the former Bournemouth duo John Spicer and Wade Elliott.

If he decides to minimise the changes then we will line up: Brian Jensen, Michael Duff, Keith Lowe, Frank Sinclair, Jon Harley, Garreth O’Connor, Micah Hyde, James O’Connor, Graham Branch, Gifton Noel-Williams, Ade Akinbiyi. Subs from: Mark Crossley, Duane Courtney, Chris McCann, John Spicer, Wade Elliott, Karl Bermingham, Kyle Lafferty.

We’d won at Leeds just three days earlier but we came unstuck against Joe Royle’s team, or should we say Darren Bent who scored the first after a poor mistake and added a second with a stunning strike from a wide position. There was never any way back for us after that.

Joe Royle described it has a functional performance and Steve Cotterill suggested it was one game too far with the club in an injury crisis. Amadou Sanokho made came on as a substitute and Cotterill added, “Not bad for a two bob trialist.”

The teams were,

Burnley: Brian Jensen, Lee Roche, Frank Sinclair (Amadou Sanokho 7), John McGreal, Mo Camara, Richard Duffy, Micah Hyde, Tony Grant, James O’Connor, Graham Branch, Robbie Blake. Subs not used: Paul Scott, Mark Yates, Joel Pilkington, Matt O’Neill.

Ipswich: Kelvin Davis, Driss Diallo, Jason De Vos, Richard Naylor, Fabian Wilnis, Tommy Miller, Jim Magilton (Matt Richards 76), Kevin Horlock, Ian Westlake, Darren Bent, Shefki Kuqi. Subs not used: Lewis Price, Aidan Collins, Dean Bowditch, Pablo Counago.