Ipswich Town play host to Crewe Alexandra on Sunday afternoon looking to end a three-match winless streak in League One.
While the home side currently occupy 13th position in the standings, Crewe remain five points adrift of safety at the bottom of the table.
Match preview
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On the back of losing just twice in 11 matches, Paul Cook would have hoped that his Ipswich side were suitably prepared to take on Sunderland and Rotherham United in successive matches.
However, the Tractor Boys went down by a 2-0 scoreline in both fixtures, leaving the club eight points adrift of the League One playoffs.
Cook will still be optimistic about a push for the top six, but his talented Ipswich squad have now failed to score in three matches against teams that they will regard as rivals.
Although the 4-1 victory at Wycombe Wanderers remains fresh in the memory, Cook is under pressure to deliver results over the coming weeks, particularly against their struggling opponents at the weekend.
Despite remaining as top goalscorer by some distance, more is required from Macauley Bonne, who has just two strikes from his last eight appearances.
Crewe have endured a disastrous run of late, prevailing in just one of their most recent 12 matches to remain at the foot of the table.
There were signs of improvement during the 2-0 triumph at home to Gillingham last weekend, but that good performance was undone away at AFC Wimbledon in midweek.
Still sitting just five points adrift of safety, David Artell will not be panicking at this stage, although Crewe need to find a way of finally posting their first away league victory of the season.
Chris Long has recently discovered his scoring touch in the final third with three goals coming from his last five starts.
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Team News
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Having witnessed his side lose out to Rotherham, Cook will likely make a couple of changes to his Ipswich XI.
Matt Penney and Kyle Edwards are options down the left flank, while Wes Burns will hope to be restored to the team ahead of Conor Chaplin.
Bonne will retain his place in the side ahead of the likes of Sone Aluko and Joe Pigott.
Oliver Finney could be recalled to the Crewe starting lineup, taking the spot of midfielder Madger Gomes.
With Long and Chris Porter impressing against Wimbledon, Mikael Mandron will remain on the substitutes' bench.
Ipswich Town possible starting lineup:
Walton; Donacien, Edmundson, Nsiala, Penney; Morsy, Evans; Burns, Celina, Edwards; Bonne
Crewe Alexandra possible starting lineup:
Richards; Offord, Williams, Sass-Davies; Kashket, Lowery, Finney, Murphy, Adebisi; Porter, Long
We say: Ipswich Town 2-1 Crewe Alexandra
On the back of two defeats without scoring a goal, confidence remains low at Portman Road. Nevertheless, the superior quality in the Tractor Boys' ranks should eventually shine through against a Crewe outfit who may be encouraged to push for all three points.
Darren Plant
Data Analysis
Our analysis of all available data, including recent performances and player stats up until an hour before kickoff, suggested the most likely outcome of this match was a Ipswich Town win with a probability of 58.88%. A draw had a probability of 23% and a win for Crewe Alexandra had a probability of 18.12%.
The most likely scoreline for a Ipswich Town win was 1-0 with a probability of 12.46%. The next most likely scorelines for that outcome were 2-0 (11.13%) and 2-1 (9.75%). The likeliest drawn scoreline was 1-1 (10.92%), while for a Crewe Alexandra win it was 0-1 (6.12%). The actual scoreline of 2-1 was predicted with a 9.8% likelihood. Our team at Sports Mole correctly predicted a 2-1 win for Ipswich Town in this match and our data analysis correctly predicted the win for Ipswich Town.
