Ipswich Town 1-1 Middlesbrough: Town miss chance to go three points clear

Ipswich Town missed the chance to go three points clear at the top of the Championship as they drew 1-1 at home to Middlesbrough.

Jeremy Sarmiento hit the post for Town soon after the equaliser while Omari Hutchinson had a good effort early in the second half.

But Town had to be grateful to goalkeeper Vaclav Hladky as he made two superb saves in quick succession with 10 minutes to go.

The draw puts Ipswich one point clear at the top of the table with three games to play after Leeds United were beaten by Blackburn in Saturday's early kick-off while Leicester City lost 1-0 at Plymouth Argyle on Friday night.

The Tractor Boys have 89 points from 43 games, Leicester are second on 88 points from 42 matches while Leeds are on 87 points from 43 fixtures.

• More of Saturday's Championship action

Conor Chaplin twice went close early on as Sarmiento looked dangerous, but it was Boro who took a surprise lead as Finn Azaz found Luke Ayling and his cross was met by Latte Lath to head in his fifth goal in five games.

But having seen Omari Hutchinson guide a shot just wide of the top corner Town were level when Leif Davis' corner found former Boro man Luongo at the far post and he blasted in off the crossbar to level the scores.

Ipswich could have gone ahead three minutes later when Sarmiento chipped Dieng after being played in by Chaplin, but his effort clipped the post while Ali Al-Hamadi's shot on the rebound was blocked.

Latte Lath had a good chance blocked by Lukas Engel just before the interval while Hutchinson had an effort stopped eight minutes after the restart having done well to beat his man.

But it was the goalkeepers who shone in the final quarter as both sides tried to get a winner - first Hladky did well to palm away a long-range Sam Greenwood strike while Seny Dieng denied Hutchison soon after.

But it was Ipswich's Czech goalkeeper who will go home with the plaudits as he produced a two magnificent saves with 10 minutes left.

First he was equal to Isiah Jones' point-blank effort before he somehow tipped over Matt Clarke's header from the resulting corner.

Ipswich Town manager Kieran McKenna told BBC Radio Suffolk:

"I think we did enough today.

"I thought it was an excellent performance, I thought it was a terrific game with two good teams.

"I thought we were the better team on the day, but Middlesbrough are very good and they cause you problems.

"We had enough chances to win the game for sure, but we didn't.

"But it's another point on the board and they're all hard fought and hard won, especially at the end of a period like this."

Middlesbrough head coach Michael Carrick told BBC Radio Tees:

"They're a good team and they made us work for it today.

"I thought the boys did ever so well, put in a hell of an effort and on a normal day a point coming here would be pretty good.

"Today we feel were looking to win games now, there's no hiding from that and we didn't manage to do it, but we were close.

"We came close, possibly should have won it in the end with the chances that we had, but nevertheless, we find ourselves here."