Ipswich Town are keen to start life under Paul Hurst with a win in their League opener against Blackburn Rovers.
Rovers were promoted to the Sky Bet Championship after pipping Hurst’s former side, Shrewsbury Town, to second place. The Salop then missed out on promotion to England’s second tier after losing 2-1 to Rotherham in the play-off final at Wembley.
The last time the two sides met was in the 2016/17 season when Ipswich Town beat Blackburn Rovers 3-2 at Portman Road in January 2017, while the Rovers held the Blues to a 0-0 draw at Ewood Park in October 2016.
However, the Blues have proved to be Blackburn Rovers’ bogey side. The Lancashire side have failed to beat Ipswich Town at Portman Road since November 1994 – when the two sides were battling in the Premier League.
Team news
The Blues will be boosted by the return of Cole Skuse, however Hurst remains without a number of players. Joe Garner remains ineligible due to injury but the Tractor Boys’ boss revealed that Danny Rowe, Teddy Bishop and Emyr Huws’ longer-term injuries are progressing well.
Rovers boss Tony Mowbray is hopeful of taking a healthy squad to Portman Road with the exception of Ben Gladwin (knee) and Jacob Davenport (hip). Meanwhile, Chelsea loanee Kasey Palmer has a battle to gain match fitness in order to feature tomorrow afternoon.
From the dugouts
Speaking ahead of the trip to Suffolk, Rovers boss Tony Mowbray said:
“The team look forward to hard work, you could see that particularly in the second half of last season and as long as we can get the same workrate from them then I don’t fear the season.
“I’m looking forward to it, we should relish every game and although we’re not necessarily going to be favourites going in to every game we know we can give teams some problems.”
Meanwhile, Blues boss Paul Hurst respected his opponents’ success at achieving promotion to the Sky Bet Championship last season, a feat he was unable to complete with Shrewsbury Town.
They did very well to win promotion and became very strong in the league after a relatively mixed start, I think Tony would have said.
“They deservedly went up – my old club couldn’t quite catch them.
“A lot of their squad is quite similar, they’ve added a couple of new players to it, but in general he’s stuck with what served him well last year.
“I’m sure they will be desperate to have a crack, many of them back in the Championship.”
