Dowman masterclass ends Town's cup run before it really began

Pre-match preamble

Realistically, I'm not expecting to win this one and I'm sure many others feel the same. Arsenal are on a roll at the moment; the Premier League champions are top of the table with four straight wins so far. But stranger things have happened, and the last time we played them here back in April 2025 is best forgotten. In case you have – we were down to 10 men, with the final score bringing them victory by four goals to nil.

Bumped into Richard again on the train in, who was without his nephew this time. Liam is now at uni in Liverpool, which has fallen rather nicely as he is joining the away gang for the Everton match on Saturday. Loud and proud Liam, we would love a win there.

The match

I shan't belabour the detail as the first half was rather painful to watch, with Arsenal scoring twice within the first 15 minutes.

Conceding early, as we did in the Liverpool game, is not a good omen, and hopefully Town can work to address this confidence-sapping trend. A first goal in a match is always a boost and something to build on to push ahead. Two is obviously a double whammy, and when two becomes four against, it is a total shocker.

Their first came from a quick one-two between Eze and Dowman; the latter sending Walton the wrong way and netting easily on the left-hand side.

Their second came from a mistake by Town's defence: after a short kick-out from Walton, they appeared to be tripping over each other's feet just outside the circle. Madueke capitalised on this confusion and tucked the ball in the net.

Shortly after half-time, Dowman scored his second to put us three goals down. Fifteen minutes later, Merino bagged the fourth, and our humiliation seemed complete. But tellingly, in the watching crowd, nobody moved, nobody left. They went on shouting and banging the drum – that was a feel-good moment. Perhaps it lifted the team.

Jack Clarke made an instant impact, and the game sparked into life. Putting a perfectly placed ball across the front of goal allowed Mehmeti to slot in a decent goal. Pulling one back felt like a big achievement. Then, to double our delight, in stoppage time, Akpom scored a peach of a goal, made by twisting himself away from the defender and powering it into the top corner. Always a good feeling to score against one of your previous clubs, I imagine. Pleased for him too, as he has missed out on minutes in the past, and the chance to show his worth.

Thirty seconds later, the whistle was blown for the end of the match.

FT: Ipswich 2-4 Arsenal

The players

Worth a mention for their dogged attempts to rescue something from the match are Nunez, Flemming, Mehmeti and Ouattara. Individually did all the team play well enough? They gave an oddly disjointed impression.

Our MotM – Jack Clarke, yes, even for just 30 minutes. The game came to life when he entered the pitch.

Overall man of the match – Max Dowman. His maturity as a 16-year-old was astonishing.

Post-match pondering

Well, we did it again.

Played rather poorly, then picked ourselves up too late to affect the result. But, having said that, I don't mean to take away from our opponents, who were sharp, clinical and took their chances – they played well.

Town had chances and several near-misses too, namely from Florentino, Flemming and Mehmeti, but there was a scrappiness in the play today that took too long to settle, and in some instances, it seemed that they were beating themselves with their indecisiveness. They had the look of a team that has rarely played together before, and to be fair, that particular eleven probably has not. Back passing and dithering, they really needed to push forward, play higher and kick it out from the back in my humble opinion, for what it's worth.

"Now we can go back to concentrating on the league" is the oft-repeated mantra when anyone exits a cup series. So yes, that.

My friend David can go back to having Arsenal as his first love and Ipswich as his second club. Until we meet them in the league, of course, but we'll be stronger by then, sporting all our wonderful new players. And, before you say it, of course I know this wasn't the top Gunners showing either – but we'll come out fighting.

One good thing I took from today's game was a better understanding of what makes the now "presumed" first-team players…the first team. We all like to play at "I know better" than the coaches and managers (I had one sitting behind me for the whole of this game), and sometimes we can be right, but the reality is most of us don't…know better, that is. Maybe others realised and acknowledged that today too, as in spite of the result no-one seemed unduly fazed by it; in the crowd walking back to the station, a pleasant hum of chatting prevailed. Doubtful that would be the case if it was a league match, though acceptance that the big six are a different animal has definitely been taken on board.

Another night of hold-ups on the train, but as it appeared to be linked to the hunt for a missing three-year-old boy, who had slipped away from his family around eight hours before, it was an obvious emergency of the worst kind. Rather puts a game of football into perspective. I do hope he is found.

It's pleasing to hear lots of good noises about Gary O'Neil. My taxi driver home, an ex-Gurkha, was very impressed with him as a coach and as a person. He mentioned his career at Wolves, Bournemouth and Strasbourg, so an informed opinion. Then he rather surprisingly said, "McKenna is chocolate: everybody likes him…Gary is gold, who has what you need and is a great coach."

An interesting perspective and food for thought from a non-Ipswich supporter.

Hill Dickinson here we come!

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