After racing into an early lead at Old Trafford, Ipswich Town must have thought they were going to pick up a terrific and rare Premier League win on their travels to Manchester United.
However, Ruben Amorim’s Red Devils just about got over the line come full-time in a messy 3-2 victory, despite being reduced to ten men on the brink of half-time.
Whilst new signing Jaden Philogene-Bidace would stand out throughout as a livewire with his two strikes, there were a whole host of underperformers that would have irked Kieran McKenna, including another out-of-sorts display from Sam Morsy in the middle.
Sam Morsy’s performance in numbers
The ageing Tractor Boys captain was thrown into the contest at the Theatre of Dreams after a ten-minute cameo versus Tottenham Hotspur, which will be an alteration McKenna must now surely regret making.
The Egyptian would gift the hosts a way back into the contest by heading past Alex Palmer after an excellent Bruno Fernandes free-kick saw the 33-year-old attempt to intervene, only to unfortunately level up the scores at one apiece.
Away from that horror moment in isolation, Morsy also failed to provide anything in attack for his up-and-down side with no efforts registered on goal, alongside no successful dribbles being pulled off.
Four duels were won on the end of the Ipswich number five, but it was a lacklustre showing in truth, which culminated in his manager bringing him off on the 66th-minute mark for a fresher Jack Taylor.
That being said, another player in blue arguably put in his weakest performance in a Tractor Boys shirt to date away in Manchester.
Performance in Numbers
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5/10 Ipswich star’s weakest performance yet
Whilst Philogene singlehandedly gave his team avenues back into the clash, other Ipswich attackers were definitely lacking in firepower.
That was the case for Liam Delap across his forgettable 90 minutes, with the 22-year-old looking fired up for the contest away at his ex-arch rivals having previously been at Manchester City, but lacked the quality to add to his ten Premier League goals.
|
Delap’s performance in numbers |
|
|---|---|
|
Stat |
Delap |
|
Minutes played |
90 |
|
Goals scored |
0 |
|
Assists |
0 |
|
Touches |
31 |
|
Shots on target |
0 |
|
Accurate passes |
8/14 (57%) |
|
Possession lost |
15x |
|
Total duels won |
5/15 |
|
Stats by Sofascore |
|
Launching into 15 duels saw a full-blooded Delap come to the forefront at Old Trafford, but he was nowhere near his usual clinical self with zero on-target shots attempted at Andre Onana’s consistently shaky net.
Moreover, the link-up play with his fellow attackers was way off too, with possession squandered 15 times off the back of his meagre eight accurate passes.
It could well be that the former City man was just caught in the heat of the moment, with his classy approach in front of goal replaced with an unpolished one as his side tasted defeat again in the Premier League.
This is unlikely to result in Delap being dropped – with his ten goals in the league making him Ipswich’s top scorer by some distance – but it will be a concern that he was below-par all the same, with East Anglian Daily Times journalist Alex Jones handing him a low 5/10 post-match rating and writing that he ‘chased shadows after an early chance’ and ‘picked up a needless booking late on.’
It doesn’t get any easier for McKenna’s bruised troops with a tough away fixture to Crystal Palace up next, with Delap hopeful he can put this off-day behind him at Selhurst Park.
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