Tractor Boys in town
For the first time since 2nd January 2016, Ipswich Town are our visitors to Turf Moor tonight as we play our FA Cup 4th round replay with the winners at home against Sheffield Wednesday or Fleetwood Town in round five.
Since that meeting in the final home game before Up the Clarets appeared, they’ve had a difficult few years, dropping into League One in 2019 and playing at that level for the first time since 1957.
Mick McCarthy was their manager last time they played at the Turf but since him, they’ve had Paul Hurst, Paul Lambert and Paul Cook before current boss Kieran McKenna moved into the job just before Christmas 2021.
He’s done a good job too and they currently sit third in League One. They are six points behind both leaders Sheffield Wednesday and Plymouth but they sit eleven points clear of the three clubs who occupy the three places behind the play-offs.
“But tonight will be an even bigger challenge. We have to find belief and show what we can do, but also respect them because if we’re not at our best, things will be very tough.”
He made a number of changes for the first game, as did Vincent Kompany and it’s likely to be similar tonight with a number of players who didn’t feature at Norwich getting some game time. One player who did play at Carrow Road and expected to play tonight is goalkeeper Bailey Peacock-Farrell.
He’s looking forward to it and he said: “There’s a big incentive for us to go and win. We want to do well in the cup and we have a big squad to handle it. We’re really excited for it, but it will be a difficult test against Ipswich. They’re a good side and have done well this season, in the league.
“Hopefully we are both able to showcase what we can do, playing out from the back and the passing styles from both sides. They gave us a good match down there and I’m sure they will again on Tuesday, it should be a really good game with two good sides.”
A win tonight will take us into the 5th round. The last time we got that far was two seasons ago when we beat MK and Fulham before losing to Bournemouth but we aren’t a club with a great pedigree and since reaching the final in 1962, we’ve got as far as the fifth round on just twelve occasions in sixty years, going beyond that stage just four times in 1963/64, 1973/74, 1982/83 and 2002/03.
Maybe with that record, we shouldn’t be getting too excited.
LAST TIME THEY WERE HERE
We’d just beaten Bristol City at home 4-0 to bring 2015 to an end and that win proved to be the first game in our twenty-three game unbeaten run.
The previous home game, against Charlton, had also ended in a 4-0 win but we couldn’t make it a hat trick with Ipswich coming and earning a point from a 0-0 draw despite them fielding Daryl Murphy, the previous season’s leading marksman in the Championship and the leading scorer at the time in that season in Andre Gray in the Burnley side.
This, however, was the day when the central defenders stood out with Michael Keane and Ben Mee in outstanding form for the Clarets.
The teams were;
Burnley: Tom Heaton, Matt Lowton, Michael Keane, Ben Mee, Stephen Ward, Scott Arfield (Matt Taylor 89), Joey Barton, David Jones, Michael Kightly (George Boyd 70), Sam Vokes, Andre Gray (Rouwen Hennings 89). Subs not used: Matt Gilks, Tendayi Darikwa, Michael Duff, Fredrik Ulvestad.
Ipswich: Dean Gerken, Luke Chambers, Tommy Smith, Christophe Berra, Jonas Knudsen, Luke Hyam, Cole Skuse, Ryan Fraser (Tommy Oar 59), Freddie Sears, Kevin Bru (Brett Pitman 64), Daryl Murphy (Luke Varney 73). Subs not used: Bartosz Bialkowski, Piotr Malarczyk, Jonathan Parr, Ainsley Maitland-Niles.
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