A sizeable number of Birmingham fans were unhappy/bemused when popular boss John Eustace was replaced in the dugout by Wayne Rooney last month.
Three straight defeats under the England legend didn’t help change that mood. The atmosphere inside St Andrew’s for a 2-0 loss to Hull City did get, by all accounts, pretty toxic.
Could Ipswich turn the crowd against their side? Or might this be the day that Rooney started to win over a few hearts and minds? The first goal, as the old cliche goes, felt crucial to setting the tone. It went Birmingham’s way.
When Juninho Bacuna stepped inside from the left he didn’t catch hold of his shot from just outside the box at all well. The alert Jay Stansfield nipped in ahead of Vaclav Hladky, spun and fired in.
‘Rooney! Rooney!’ was the chant. The stadium was unified not fractious. Ipswich were now playing against the proverbial 12th man.
Rooney enjoyed some strong strike partnerships during his stellar playing career. Think Duncan Ferguson, Michael Owen, Ruud van Nistelrooy and Carlos Tevez.
Maybe that’s why he was willing to channel his inner Mike Bassett and deploy the lesser spotted 4-4-2 formation for this match.
Actually, it was more a 4-2-2-2. Oliver Burke, who usually plays out wide, moved up top to provide some muscle alongside the fleet-footed Stansfield, while wide men Koji Miyoshi and Bacuna tucked inside.
Birmingham pressed high and hard, hunting in packs. With time and space at a premium, Ipswich weren’t allowed to get their build from the back game off the ground.
That opening goal had been coming. For the best part of half an hour, Ipswich were penned in.
As good as Birmingham were without the ball, they lacked end product with it. Did Ipswich weather a storm after going behind? It felt like it at the time, but looking back it was lots of bark and little bite. Vaclav Hladky’s goal wasn’t really threatened.
Then, in the final third of the first half, we started to see some signs that the home side’s ferocious early intensity was just starting to wear off. That was always going to be the case. There was no way they could keep that up all game.
Nathan Broadhead volleyed a good chance wide of the post following George Hirst’s headed knock down from a deep Sam Morsy free-kick delivery. A few moments later, following another cushioned Hirst header, Conor Chaplin’s audacious lob was tipped over the bar by back-pedalling John Ruddy.
Things may not have gone quite to plan, but come the break there was no need to panic. I was feeling confident that Ipswich could make this more their sort of game after the restart.
Indeed, the Blues started the second period playing with a lot more poise and purpose. Chaplin’s low cross into the six-yard box was hacked away. Hirst and Omari Hutchinson then both had soft penalty appeals waved away. The game looked to be going only one way…
Birmingham were the next team to score though. It was another unfortunate one too from an Ipswich perspective, with Cameron Burgess sticking out a leg to divert Bacuna’s low cross from the left past his own keeper.
That goal re-energised the home crowd. For a spell, it knocked the stuffing out of the visitors. Hirst was caught offside, Harry Clarke over-cooked a pass into touch, then Birmingham had a glorious chance to score a third just before the hour. Thankfully, Town’s in-form keeper Hladky was there to race off his line and make a smart one-v-one stop against Burke.
At this stage, Town’s players were starting to look a little jaded in the rain. When Broadhead’s downwards header in the box hit Ethan Laird near the hip/thigh, more half-hearted Ipswich penalty appeals were ignored and home fans mockingly shouted ‘handball!’ during the next few phases of play.
It was around 65 minutes that Birmingham started to get a little deep.
A dangerous Leif Davis inswinging corner led to Chaplin forcing Ruddy into a smart stop. A few minutes later, a superb last-ditch tackle by Ethan Laird saw the ball spin away from Chaplin and just past the post.
You sensed that one goal back could quickly change the mood inside the stadium.
Kieran McKenna turned to his bench in the 72nd minute. Off came Massimo Luongo, Broadhead, Chaplin and Hirst. On came Jack Taylor, Marcus Harness, Dane Scarlett and Freddie Ladapo.
The stadium announcer hammed up his role of leaving a dramatic pause after each Ipswich player’s name was read out. Birmingham fans filled the gaps with a unified shout of ‘who?’ That came back to bite them on the bum.
Rooney responded with three changes of his own but afterwards rued ‘their subs made a difference and I felt ours didn’t’.
It was a moment of magic from Scarlett that led to Town pulling a goal back in the 79th minute. His blink-and-you’ll-miss-it shoulder-dropping stepover left Laird for dead down the left side of the box. From the subsequent square pass, Freddie Ladapo, who had done well to get into the box after being wiped out by a crunching Sanderson tackle seconds earlier, saw a side-footed effort clawed away by Ruddy. Thankfully, Harness was there to stab in the rebound past two men on the line.
That goal sparked an almighty roar from the 1,970-strong Blue Army down that end. Nerves were suddenly in the air and Tottenham loanee Scarlett preyed on them. He was fouled on halfway, then soon forced Ruddy into a sharp stop when firing a bouncing ball at goal.
Birmingham made defensive changes after that. Bacuna tried to whip up the fans for one big push after winning a foul down the right. Lukas Jutkiewicz headed a good chance wide for the hosts. They looked to have ridden the storm. Maybe Ipswich had left it too little, too late this time.
Scarlett was again involved with a clipped pass up the line. Omari Hutchinson’s dart and low cross looped up off the foot of Laird and seemed to take an age dropping from the sky…
Harness kept his big beautiful eyes on the prize. Back to goal, he swivelled and caught the ball with the cleanest of volleys. The low strike fizzed through a crowd and left the net bulging to spark pandemonium in the away end. ‘I just swung at it’ was his modest assessment afterwards. He does himself a disservice there.
A brace off the bench makes it four goals in six games for the versatile attacker. Many people, myself included, thought the former Portsmouth man might have been sold to make way for new recruits following promotion. How wrong we were. The 27-year-old is relishing his chance to prove he is capable at Championship level. I enjoyed him breaking away from the ‘we’ve all got a role to play’ rhetoric post-match to insist ‘I want to be more than a super sub’.
Those that finish the game are undoubtedly just as important as the ones who start it though. That’s 10 goals from subs this season for Ipswich and 19 this calendar year.
The ‘running towards adversity’ mantra is being adhered to. This Ipswich side just do not know when they are beaten. That’s the third time this season and fourth time this year they’ve recovered from a two-goal deficit.
Town are now unbeaten in 10 league games. They’re four points behind leaders Leicester and seven points ahead of third-place Leeds with a re-arranged game in hand to come at Rotherham on Tuesday night.
As much as we’ve all enjoyed some of the thrilling, high-scoring wins on home soil, it’s these gritty points on the road that could be just as important when the final totting up happens next May.
