Ipswich's Late Drama Fails to Materialize Against Sunderland

Ipswich have made a habit of late twists this season. Sunderland felt it. Crystal Palace felt it. So when the board went up for seven added minutes at Hill Dickinson Stadium, the away end roared in expectation of another stoppage-time sting.

It never came.

Gary O'Neil rolled the dice, sending on Zian Flemming, the match-winner against Palace and the man Ipswich wanted on the ball when it mattered. He got his chance, too. Deep into injury time, the ball broke kindly, Flemming opened up his body – and lashed it over the bar. Heads went into hands. That was the moment.

Ipswich, down to 10 men after Abdul Fatawu’s red card midway through the second half, still refused to fold. They kept pushing, kept running, kept believing there was one last punch left in them. The pattern flipped, though. With the extra man, the hosts finally started to pin them back.

Even then, the visitors needed their goalkeeper. Jordan Pickford, fresh from another call-up to Thomas Tuchel’s England squad, turned the afternoon into his own personal highlights reel. Four times Ipswich carved out clear openings. Four times Pickford stood firm – flying to his left, spreading himself, reading the angles, keeping his side alive.

The pressure swung again in the final seconds. Centre-half Issa Diop stayed up from a late set-piece and suddenly the ball dropped at his feet. One clean strike and Ipswich would have been punished. He hit it, bodies threw themselves in front, and a combination of Jarrad Branthwaite and James Garner smothered the shot. The chance was gone, along with the point.

For O'Neil, it has been a draining week off the pitch, his father having died just days earlier. On it, his players responded the way he would have wanted: aggressive without the ball, brave with it, and relentless in their hunt for an equaliser. They chased, pressed and probed until the final whistle, even if the scoreboard refused to budge.

The late drama Ipswich craved never quite materialised, but the bigger picture still offers O'Neil something solid to cling to. Five games into their return to the top flight, they sit on six points and, crucially, outside the early-season scrap at the bottom.

Now comes a three-week international break. Time to breathe, to reset, and to work out whether this start is a platform – or just a pause before the real grind begins.