Wigston Tractor Boy

There's actually 5 unbeaten teams. Sunderland, Southampton, Nottingham Forest and Ipswich are also unbeaten. Newcastle are the only 100% record left in the league though.

Well I got the team selection bang on! With that in mind I'll predict a 2-1 home win.

As for the game, I think it's a naff draw for everyone. This will mean Leicester are the team we've played the most in the previous 3/4 years and while it would be nice to give Burns and Chaplin a good reception, doesn't feel likely they'll play much. Both sides will want to focus on the league so will be second strings. At this point I think the main benefit to Ipswich is a way to keep fringe players match fit and involved if they can get through. I reckon the Town lineup will be something like: Akpom Clarke - Egeli - McAteer Nunez/Lukic - Humphreys Ouattara - Kipre - O'Shea - Furlong Walton Question marks are the holding midfielders an left back as we're short on cover with injuries ATM. Could be Leif Davis at Left back and Ouattara going into midfield if we wanted to rest both Nunez and Lukic. Fatawu will likely be on the bench as he started on Saturday (looked very handy though).

There's definitely an element coming out of the woodwork. I remember visiting Ipswich 10 years ago and not seeing a single town shirt on the street. Went to Centre Parcs near Thetford a couple of years ago and every other man or child was in a Town top. Look on the positive side for tonight, Ipswich have a horrendous record against lower league teams in the cup. Suppose the downside is that factoid is even relevant!

I think that's fair. Leicester reached their capacity at 32k and have maintained it for a decade now. I suppose we'll have to see if Ipswich do the same. One thing is that now both clubs have reached capacity of their ground, it's difficult to know the limits. I'm sure both could get more than 30k in the Prem, but where is the ceiling? I think they have very different catchments. Leicester is significantly bigger than Ipswich, but there is only 1 other significant club with 70 miles of Ipswich and no other major sports team in the entirety of Suffolk. I think 38-40k would be about right size of Ipswich as a ceiling, but depends if it's worth the expense of upgrading the ground. Sad reality is that now it's becoming more important to have better hospitality seats than more seats for punters. It's a shame Leicester didn't add an extra tier to the KP during the last 10 years. Missed opportunity.

For pretty much the entirety of the last 60 years Ipswich and Leicester's attendances have bounced around the same numbers. The only major divergence was when Leicester got promoted and then won the PL and attendances jumped from 20k to 32k. At this time, Ipswich were absolutely stagnating and reach our lowest league position since the 50s. As soon as Ipswich jumped up the divisions they experienced the same style jump Leicester did. It was just offset by a few years. If Ipswich had "awful support until a few years back", by the same logic Leicester did until 2014* *FWIW I don't believe this to be true. What happened is both club recovered from being at rock bottom and weirdly enough, more people want to watch winning football teams.

Fast, pacey winger with a good cross and a hard shot. More of a traditional winger rather than the modern trend for inverted wingers. He will look to beat his man to the byline and get a ball in the box. Faster than most players at League 1 level. Decent enough goal scoring record, especially in League 1 and a very good relationship on and off the pitch with Chaplin. Almost telepathic those 2. If the aim is get out of League 1, he's a great pick up (unless you get fleeced on massive wages or fee) His usual goal is arriving at the edge of the box and smashing the ball like it wronged him in a past life, back across the keeper into the far corner. However he scored his sensational trivela goal in the previous promotion which was frankly absurd.

One of my favourite Town players of the last few years. Always gave his all and scored a bucketload of goals in League 1 plus some crucial goals in the Championship. The way he was used at Ipswich was as a central 10 and he bagged most of those goals coming into the box late for the cutback. His limitations are really his size and speed. He's a smart player who can pick out a great crossfield ball and knows where the goal is, but unfortunately he was cursed to live in a child's body. As mentioned already, he does lots in the community and an all round good egg too.

Wasn't an explicit rule back then. The specific rule about spying before a game was created purely because of Leeds that season. Leeds could have argued the rules were ambiguous and they just went too far. Southampton would have known it was against the rules and did it anyway on a minimum of 3 games between December and May, but likely far more.

Always had a soft spot for Leicester.

I think 'hate him' is way too strong. There are question marks over why we bought him and definitely why we paid as much as we did, but he's regularly in the squad and I'd expect to see him involved the game tomorrow. Beginning of the year we had 3 right wingers, Sindre Walle Egeli who is 19 and just joined, Wes Burns still injured and recovering from a season ending injury last year and Chio Ogbene who was also just back from a season long injury. Ipswich decided to ship out Ogbene on loan and bring in McAteer, which on the face of it meant we had a senior right winger without injury concerns to support Egeli while waiting for Burns. Issue is, that wasn't worth anywhere near the ~£10m figure bandied about. I think it's put him in a crap position because he's having to justify a price tag that is just higher than his value to the team. PS. Yes, we have Clarke and Philogene on the Left who could deputise on the right, but both have struggled to perform on the right and in any case would weaken us on the left if they also had to cover the right.

Coventry squad doesn't have much depth. They had 2 Goalies on the bench against Ipswich. Couple of injuries during this busy festive period can easily throw a spanner into the works. It did for Ipswich last time in the Championship until we could strengthen in Jan.

I think you'd be insane to want Southampton to win if you were a Leicester fan. Why would you want them to have their season on the line against you in a do or die game in a weeks time? Surely better for them to be down and out. As an Ipswich fan though, the dream would be Southampton win their next 2 and then get draw a 0-0 with you, with multiple red cards each way.

There's pros and cons as a Town fan for our weekend off. On the plus side, there is a chance Burns and possibly even Hirst are back for the run in. Burns especially gives us such a potent option down the right (see the goal of the season). Also I think we need the break as we've looked knackered in the last few games. Downside is it's a hectic final week, plus if Leicester, Leeds and Southampton have a perfect* 2 weeks up until then, there could be a lot of pressure. Leicester play 2, Southampton play 4 and Leeds play 2 before Ipswich next kick a ball (albeit some of that is just the late kick off time on Saturday). We could theoretically be in 4th, 2 points behind both Leicester and Southampton and 4 behind Leeds when we kick off against Hull. *obviously Leicester and Southampton play each other, so someone drops points, but you get my drift.

Ipswich left back in that TOTS and this years. Maybe that is a good omen for you!