- Navigating the bitter sting of defeat and the inevitable Ipswich gloating.
- Why you sometimes have to accept you’ve been beaten by a better side.
- Hopefully City fans won’t have to wait for 16 seasons to relive that feeling.
Ipswich fans will be made up to hear that, two days after the event, it still stings as much as it did at 2:30pm on Saturday.
That’s just how it is. Tis all part of the life cycle of a local derby.
I made the mistake of bemoaning on ‘Twitter’ that the jibes and gloating are showing no sign of abating, and was told in no uncertain terms to suck it up (‘princess’), as it’s not easing up anytime soon.
Fair play. We have to take it on the chin (and in the ear). Especially when you dish it out.
Some of our brethren made hay during the 14-game unbeaten run, and this is payback time.
So, yeah, we have to suck it up.
We knew it was coming and, in hindsight, it should be the least surprising thing ever that two days hence, the Tractor Boys and Girls are still filling their boots.
Best defence in the Championship
What has surprised me a little is the reaction of some notable City supporters, who took to social media with considerable venom, citing feeling let down and even “embarrassed”.
Some, I understand, refused to offer the team even polite applause at the end and berated those who did.
And that, I don’t quite get.
Yes, of course, it was disappointing, and I’ve not seen a single supporter on either side who has suggested Ipswich were not worthy of the win, even with their 33 per cent of possession and one corner.
The stats were such because Town were content to let us have the ball, safe in the knowledge that, statistically, the best defence in the league was more than capable of seeing out a 1-0.
As it happened, they grabbed a second, making them doubly determined to hang on to what they had.
Millwall soon forgotten
To break them down was always going to take something special and beyond the ordinary, and, on the day, we weren’t quite good enough. We were ordinary. And there was no one good enough to find a chink in that impenetrable wall of blue.
But it didn’t make me angry. Disappointed, yes. Gutted, yes. Thoroughly peed off, yes. But not angry.
Seven days earlier, we were the ones who were cock-a-hoop, having delivered Millwall a short, sharp lesson in how to win away, and the players were deservedly lauded as heroes.
The same players who invoked such anger in some quarters.
Maybe it’s an age thing, and as simple as that, but I didn’t quite get it. Maybe some of our younger brethren have been so spoiled by that 16-year run that they’ve forgotten how it feels. Maybe some are so young they, quite literally, don’t know how it feels.
But, as painful as it was (and still is), that really is football. Just because we have (or had) the record as statistically the best Championship side of 2026, there was still no divine right to win the derby. I feared for those who were convinced it was destined to be our day.
Ipswich ahead of us … at the moment
We all hoped. Of course we did. But it was only ever, at best, a 50/50 game. I called it in my preview as 60/40 in favour of that lot.
So, yeah, while I was unsurprised by the reaction of those south of the border, I was by a few of those north of it.
In terms of squad development, Ipswich are well ahead of us, in terms of quality, experience and money spent. They should, with all of the resources they have, win automatic promotion and probably will.
We, meanwhile, are on an upward curve, but are only partway up it.
That they had a bit too much for us on the day was, on that score, unsurprising. We needed to be perfect on the pitch, and weren’t, and we needed Big Phil to nail it and, for once, he didn’t.
So, as that aggressive Ipswich bloke told me on X: ‘Suck it up buttercups.’ 🙂
We will be back and win another derby. We may, though, just have to be patient.
OTBC.
