Report and free match highlights from the Sky Bet Championship match between Plymouth Argyle and Ipswich Town at Home Park on Saturday | Brendan Galloway's own goal and Kieffer Moore seal another win for rampant Tractor Boys as they move up to second.
Saturday 2 March 2024 18:44, UK
Ipswich moved back up to second place in the Sky Bet Championship following a 2-0 win at Plymouth.
Kieffer Moore sealed Town's win after Conor Chaplin's shot was deflected in by home defender Brendan Galloway in the 63rd minute.
Argyle's top scorer Morgan Whittaker forced an early save from Ipswich goalkeeper Vaclav Hladky.
The keeper palmed the ball to Darko Gyabi, but the Leeds loanee sent a fierce low drive just wide of the upright from the edge of the box.
Ipswich countered, with target man Moore's header bringing a 14th-minute save from Argyle goalkeeper Conor Hazard.
Hladky did well to punch away Adam Randell's inswinging corner as the home side again tried applying pressure on their high-flying visitors.
Omari Hutchinson saw a goal-bound shot blocked after being teed up by impressive midfielder Jeremy Sarmiento.
In the 35th minute, Whittaker's 25-yard shot was blocked but fell to striker Ryan Hardie on the edge of the box and his rising drive flew just over.
And shortly afterwards Ipswich defender Luke Woolfenden made a brilliant clearance off the line to keep out Mickel Miller's volley.
The half ended with Ipswich pressing and Leif Davis's corner from the right needed to be cleared at the near post by a defender's diving header.
Whittaker tried an audacious chip from 40 yards after spotting Hladky off his line early in the second half, but the ball flew just over.
Moore was again denied by Hazard in the 55th minute as the striker headed goalwards from Davis's far-post cross from the left.
Hutchinson sent a curling shot just wide of the far upright after 56 minutes with Hazard beaten and then forced a superb diving save from the keeper on the hour.
The ball looped up to Chaplin and his header was helped on - and over the bar - by Moore.
Chaplin benefited from a huge slice of fortune three minutes later as his 18-yard shot deflected off Galloway, completely wrong-footing Hazard, with the ball spinning into the opposite corner of the goal.
Ipswich doubled their lead in the 74th minute as Davis sent over another cross from the right. Cameron Burgess headed the ball on to Chaplin and Moore finished with a half-volley at the far post.
Miller went closest for Plymouth with a 78th-minute shot on the run from outside the box that beat Hladky but smashed off the foot of a post and across the face of goal.
Plymouth's Ian Foster:
"We don't like losing games of football, especially here at Home Park, and obviously we are just really disappointed with the manner of the goal.
"It's an unfortunate one for us. The shot was going wayward and it's just hit Brendan and unfortunately ricocheted into the goal.
"The manner of that type of goal can affect you psychologically. It's been an incredibly tough run of games here and we've given it our best shot, two of those teams we have played have shared second place today.
"We've tried to have right go - and I think we've done that again. We have shown that we can bounce back, so hopefully we can do that on Tuesday at Sheffield Wednesday."
Ipswich's Kieran McKenna:
"To win five in a row, when we have had some tough away games, that consistency is really pleasing. It was a really solid performance. Our organisation was good, our discipline was good and we were really competitive.
"We came out on top in more than our fair share of challenges and that gave us a really good foothold in the game in the first half.
"We knew it was going to be difficult. We knew we were going to have to stand up to a really strong home atmosphere and we had to stand up in difficult conditions, weather and pitch-wise.
"We did that really well and that gave us a really good platform at half-time to know we could push on…if we kept doing the right things, kept limiting their threats, we knew the chances would come our way and it was another really good second-half performance.
"We haven't had too many games like this one. It was quite stop-start. We always back our fitness, our style, to some point it was not easy in the first half.
"We really felt confident that it would come good for us in the second half. The goal took a really big deflection but we had created chances either side of the goal so we felt a goal was coming."
