A battling performance at Portman Road yielded four goals and three points on Saturday afternoon as we put Ipswich Town to the sword in some style.
With the home side desperate for points in their fight against relegation, Ipswich made us work hard for the win but we matched them for effort and determination and then let our football do the talking with two goals in each half to secure our third straight Premier League win.
Brennan Johnson, making his first league start since early January, scored his first Spurs brace to fire us into a 2-0 lead before Omari Hutchinson reduced the arrears. And, after we’d survived a couple of scares in the second half, superb goals from Djed Spence and Dejan Kulusevski put the game out of reach of the hosts and gave us our first win at Portman Road since August, 1994.
It only took 29 seconds for the first chance of the game and it fell to the home side, Liam Delap away down the left and forcing Guglielmo Vicario into a save, Jaden Philogene fired in the rebound which Vicario saved again although offside was given and we escaped. Delap was causing us plenty of problems early on and sent a looping header against the far post from Kalvin Phillips’ free-kick. However we grew into the game and saw our first sight of goal on 13 minutes, Heung-Min Son streaking away down the left and pulling back for Lucas Bergvall, whose shot was blocked. And it was another Son break that opened the scoring five minutes later. Picked out by a lovely ball over the top from Archie Gray, the skipper’s quick feet left two defenders in his wake and his low cross was prodded home by Johnson from two yards out.
That settled us down and it wasn’t long before the same two players combined for our second, this time Rodrigo Bentancur slipping a pass inside the full-back for Son and he showed patience before squaring across the area for Johnson to apply a calm left-footed finish past Alex Palmer in the Ipswich goal.
Back came the home side though, reducing the deficit in the 36th minute when Phillips played in former Spur Jack Clarke down the left, his cut-back found Hutchinson and he swept the ball home with his left foot. Four minutes before the break we almost made it 3-1, Bentancur forcing Palmer into a smart save after a strong run through midfield and so we went into half-time with just the one goal advantage.
The early stages of the second period were a bit stop-start and it was 60 minutes before anything of note, Town’s Luke Woolfenden heading in at the far post only to see the flag go up for offside. We went close moments later, superb work from Bergvall setting up Johnson whose effort was well blocked by Leif Davis.
As the game wore in, it started to get tetchy with tackles flying in as Ipswich tried to battle their way back into the contest but we kept our cool and scored a magnificent third to take the sting out of the match. Kevin Danso made a great interception on half-way and we popped the ball around until it reached substitute James Maddison inside the area, his superb skill took out four defenders as he laid the ball in to Spence, who took a touch and lashed a shot past Palmer via a deflection off substitute Luke Woolfenden.
Our fourth wasn’t bad either! As the home side pushed forward, Danso pinged a ball forwards which Dane Scarlett – off the bench and back at the club for which he played 12 games on loan last season – met with a wonderful flicked header to release Kulusevski and the Sweden international drove forwards down the right, cut onto his left foot and curled a beauty in off the far post. Job done!