Ipswich Town supremo Gary O’Neil felt his side should have had at least one penalty in their 2-2 draw at Hull City on Saturday, while suggesting his side were deserving of all three points.
The Tractor Boys dominated the first half and deservedly led at the break through Florentino Luis’ fine strike midway through the first half.
Despite their dominance against an abject Tigers side, Ipswich failed to make the most of their superiority, and the game changed in the second half when City boss Sergej Jakirovic changed his formation and sent on Matt Crooks.
Tim Iroegbunam and Oli McBurnie fired the hosts 2-1 in front, before Enciso rattled in a fine equaliser to make it 2-2, and ensure the flight back to Suffolk was better than it could have been.
O’Neil, though, felt his side could have had at least one penalty for a foul by Nobel Mendy, though he did accept a goal his side had chalked off as a correct decision by referee Tom Kirk.
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“I thought it was an excellent performance, better side for almost all of it. Obviously, disappointment that it doesn’t get us three points, but a point on the road in the Premier League is still good,” the Ipswich chief said at the MKM Stadium.
“A lot of promise that we were that much better than them in their own stadium. That takes some doing; they’re a good side still, they’ve been going well. Just a little bit of disappointment that we didn’t manage the two; maybe we had three real situations that we needed to manage. Walts [Christian Walton] gets us out of one with a good save, and then the other two ended in goals.
“We knew that Hull would be waiting for those sort of mistakes and those moments; they were the only way that they were going to hurt us. There was nothing tactically that could cause us a problem. So I’m disappointed that we didn’t find a way to manage those two situations, but really pleased with the players and what they gave. I can accept mistakes, always. It was a top performance with the ball; we dominated. Hull were better in the second half than they were in the first, but they still weren’t better than us. They were obviously a bit more aggressive, and they had no choice but to be, but still we created many, many chances and should have scored more goals; we should probably have had two penalties.”
“I thought the disallowed goal was right, actually. I think they got that one right. It looked like a possible foul from Abdul Fatawu on McBurnie, and Julio is probably offside as well, so no complaints around that. I thought they did well to get that one right.
“We’ve been told you can’t hold from corners. We adjust our set-up to have fewer markers now because I think it’s tough to mark without giving away penalties in the Premier League because we’ve been told you can’t hold. And [Nobel] Mendy had hold of DOS [Dara O’Shea] basically from the moment he entered the box to the moment he left, so I was surprised on those two. I thought they were fairly clear.
“If the referee had given it, I don’t think VAR would have overturned it. Probably a little bit more reliant on the ref to see those live. I thought they were fortunate to get away with those two. The first two corners, they were both the same. They tell me the second one was still being checked when we scored, when Tino [Florentino Luis] scored, so there is potential that that one would have been brought back anyway. But we made two mistakes in the game as well; it happens, nobody’s perfect, but I was surprised to be holding him for that long. I thought we would potentially get a penalty.
“And Hull, you have to give them credit, they’ve done that against everybody, really, they’ve capitalised on mistakes. They don’t dominate the game; they don’t batter your goal. The goal they scored away at Stamford Bridge is a big mistake, and they capitalise on it. And that was it really. A couple of mistakes and they punished us for them.”
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