Team Focus: Ipswich Strike Partnership Leading the Promotion Charge

If money, as we are led to believe, is the key to success in football, Ipswich should be nowhere near the top. Bereft of a transfer kitty, Mick McCarthy relies on free acquisitions and loans while others around them spend big in pursuit of elevation.

Yet the bandwagon continues to roll, a 4-1 win over Leeds on Saturday maintained the deficit to the leaders, Derby, to a single point. Their best start in a decade has turned into promotion talk and McCarthy’s cheaply assembled squad of proven campaigners show no sign of letting up.

Much of their success has been down to the formidable duo of Daryl Murphy and David McGoldrick. In the Championship there are several ingredients which can propel a team to success and an old-fashioned strike partnership is among the strongest flavours.

Murphy and McGoldrick are, in many ways, this season’s Danny Ings and Sam Vokes – the pair who were integral to Burnley’s promotion last season. Both Murphy and McGoldrick scored against Leeds – Murphy equalising with a header before McGoldrick’s penalty put the Tractor Boys in front. Murphy added the third, Christophe Berra scored the fourth.

The combination has even made the Republic of Ireland manager, Martin O’Neill, take notice – selecting them to start in last month’s 4-1 win against the USA. McGoldrick created two of the goals – the first a sublimely weighted pass for Anthony Pilkington, the second a deft back heel into the path of Robbie Brady – and although neither scored, they were on the same wavelength.

It has been that telepathic reading which has provided 19 of Ipswich’s 32 goals – Murphy to date notching 13, McGoldrick scoring six along with a pair of assists.

Murphy has the division’s highest shots per game average and has provided the highest percentage of goals to his team with 41% – Britt Assombalonga’s 12 at Nottingham Forest is the next best – but Ipswich, as a team, have only the 11th highest shots per game average. While not as prolific, McGoldrick puts in endless work which goes unnoticed and his link-up play has been integral.

They have conceded a larger share of possession in more than half of their games and a total average of 49.5% – the 16th best in the division – points to accusations of long ball football. Only Watford have scored more goals from set pieces, but who cares at Portman Road while it continues to produce results. The style of play also leads to another easy comparison to Ings and Vokes last season where, often, it seemed that Burnley were bypassing midfield.

It would be doing the rest of this Ipswich side a disservice to say they are merely a two-man team, though, for defensively they have been most solid. The centre-halves, Berra and Tommy Smith, have scored four and three times respectively but there have been only three goals scored from midfield.

 
Still of late, everything appears to be going their way. Even when Murphy and McGoldrick have an off day, a capable member of the support cast have stepped up. Noel Hunt scored in injury time to steal a 1-0 win at Charlton on his debut the weekend before last. He was on the pitch for seven minutes and suffered a nasty looking head injury right before the goal. Hunt has form for enduring lengthy droughts but that one moment could make a big difference when it comes to the shake up in the spring.

Ipswich have a six point cushion to seventh but McCarthy sees no reason to look down. “We want to stay in the top two now,” he said after the Leeds win. “Why would we be looking at sixth and wondering what sort of cushion we have? We’re in second and we want to stay there. Whether we’re good enough or strong enough going forwards, who knows? But we’ve played a lot of the teams and we’re there now. It’s a nice place to be.”

The most difficult challenge is to stay there but, as Burnley showed last season, it can be done. Derby look head and shoulders above the rest at the moment in terms of having the full package but McCarthy possesses a grit and knack which could well see them biting at the Rams' heels for months to come.

Can Ipswich maintain their unlikely title challenge this season? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below