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Ipswich Town have found life tough in the Championship so far, and the weekend’s events at Ewood Park did not help matters.
After intense rainfall, Blackburn Rovers’ contest against Kieran McKenna’s side was abandoned, and now the EFL are deciding whether the Championship contest should be replayed.
Nonetheless, it rescued the Tractor Boys from defeat for the time being, as Todd Cantwell’s penalty saw the hosts lead 1-0 into the 80th minute.
Despite this poor start, which has left Ipswich 17th in the league table, Chuba Akpom has told supporters that the team will find a way out of this current predicament.
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Chuba Akpom explains that Ipswich Town need time to gel
A 5-0 win over Sheffield United just after the international break was proof that the Tractor Boys do have the quality to mount a promotion challenge, but they have not shown that quality against any of their other opponents.
However, Akpom, who rejected Birmingham City in favour of Ipswich, has urged calm. When asked if this side is better than the 2022/23 Middlesbrough team, he said (via: Teesside Live) : “I’d say this squad on paper is definitely better, but it’s more about gelling. You look at teams like PSG when they had Messi and Neymar, they didn’t win the Champions League.
“It’s all about the team gelling and everybody sacrificing themselves for the team. If we have that on top of the talent, 100 per cent we should do good. It’s normal for people to start panicking, but it’s early days. There’s lots of new players, not just from this season but from last season, and everyone just needs a bit of time to gel.
“We can see in training during the international break, we’ve really hammered down on the patterns of play, how we want to defend and attack, and I feel like it’s definitely helped the team already. Bit by bit, slowly but surely, we’ll get there.
“We definitely needed that international break. The things we’ve learned that the gaffer has instilled into us, the way that he wants to play, the way that he wants to use all the new players. It’s time to kick on from now.
“It’s time for us to step up and help the team gel as fast as possible because there’s no time to waste. There’s no time for it now. We just need to adapt as soon as possible because we’ve played a few games. From now there’s no excuses. We want to produce, we want to win games and show everyone what we can do.”
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How many points Middlesbrough had after five games in 2022/23
The comparison between Ipswich and Middlesbrough is an interesting one, as well as the one between the Tractor Boys and PSG.
At the same stage of the 2022/23 campaign, Boro had just three points on the board, and they were struggling towards the bottom of the Championship table.
Akpom has been in this position before, and helped his former club get out of that situation, although the appointment of Michael Carrick did help at the end of October.
McKenna has the players at his disposal to drag Ipswich towards the play-off places, but more poor performances could spell bad news for the Tractor Boys.