Blues boss Paul Jewell said his side was indebted to keeper Arran Lee-Barrett during their ground out 1-0 victory over his former club Derby at Portman Road. Lee-Barrett, back in the team after David Stockdale’s return to Fulham, recorded Town’s first clean sheet in nine matches.
Jewell said: "It was a scrappy game. I think Derby edged it in the first half, they had the better chances and we were indebted to Arran to keep us in the game.
"In the second half, it was a battle, a scrappy game that we were delighted to get the three points from.”
The Town manager said he hadn’t had another look at his side’s goal but had been told the video evidence showed it was over the line: "We don’t get a great view but I actually thought it looked quite deep over the line and the players tell me it was over the line.
"How long it took to give the goal is probably what Derby are annoyed about, and I can understand that.
"Apparently the linesman ran to the halfway line, but if he’d just stuck his flag up there would have been no confusion. People who have seen the DVD tell me it was over the line.”
Jewell was pleased to see his side net immediately after the break for the second week running: "We started well in the second half last week and did the same this week. After that it was a scrap, as it was in the Portsmouth game.
"There weren’t a plethora of chances in the second half, there were one or two, but other than that it was just a hard-fought 1-0.”
The Blues boss was pleased to see Keith Andrews score again and says Town are due to hold talks regarding the 31-year-old staying at Portman Road beyond his loan which is up after the Nottingham Forest game: "He’s scored nine goals, which is a terrific contribution from a midfield player.
"We’re delighted with him and we’ll be trying to keep him here beyond his loan period, but the more goals he scores, the more difficult it’s getting for us.
"He wants to stay and we’re going to try to keep him. His agent is meeting the owner on Monday.”
Jewell says Richard Wright is fit after his strained pec but didn’t want to take any risks with him: "Richard is fit but there was no way I could take a chance. Cody Cropper had a cartilage operation on Friday, so we needed Richard to be fit. Cody’s out for six weeks.”
Derby manager Nigel Clough wasn’t sure whether the ball crossed the line but felt the officials should have made it clear it was a goal much more quickly: "I don’t know, we can’t see from where we are.
"Traditionally, if it goes over the line the linesman puts his flag up, that’s what we’ve always seen in 30-odd years of football.
"But there’s nothing we can do about it now, we’re disappointed with the way we defended it straight after half-time.
"All we can do is put it in the report, how poor we thought the officials were. That’s our only act of recourse.”
Clough was generally pleased with the way his team performed and felt they deserved a point: "We’re happy with the way we played, certainly the first half.
"We created some good chances away from home. Very similar to how we’ve been playing lately — good level of performance just not enough to keep a clean sheet and not enough for someone to get us a goal.”
Story syndicated from TWTD.co.uk