Royle sorry for his old mate Stan

PERFECTIONIST Joe Royle was disappointed with one aspect of his side's six-goal romp – their failure to keep a second successive clean sheet.The Ipswich boss hailed his in-form team's sizzling first-half display when he said: "We were outstanding in that period.

By Mel Henderson

PERFECTIONIST Joe Royle was disappointed with one aspect of his side's six-goal romp – their failure to keep a second successive clean sheet.

The Ipswich boss hailed his in-form team's sizzling first-half display when he said: "We were outstanding in that period. Some of our forward play was awesome – we've scored five but we also missed chances.

"That sort of performance has been coming for a while now. I felt that someone would get it and it's just a pity that it's my mate Stan!"

But Royle made no secret of his disappointment that Burnley were allowed to pull a goal back just four minutes into the second half.

He added: "As much as I impressed on the players at half-time the value of the second half and a clean sheet, we switched off and some of them went walkabout.

"The fact that we didn't manage a clean sheet is disappointing, but I suppose that's a manager being a bit pernickety."

Royle took a swipe at his critics, those who condemned Ipswich as a long-ball outfit when their failure to win any of their opening six league games saw them plunge to the bottom of the table.

He said: "Some people had us relegated last month, but now we're the division's leading goalscorers and we're just six points off top spot. We've done really well to get back in it.

"We've been complaining about missing chances and not scoring enough goals, yet here we are as the leading scorers. That's a great statistic – I don't always go by statistics but I'm proud of that one.

"We played some great stuff and there was some terrific passing. Maybe not enough long balls – we've got to kick it further!"

Royle also praised debut-making substitute Gerard Nash after the 17-year-old Dubliner replaced Georges Santos as a precautionary measure for the last 14 minutes.

The Town manager said: "Nashy's a player and we'll be giving him some steak pie to build him up. The kid's a smashing footballer from the back.

"When you think that we've got him and young Aidan Collins, who's 17 on Saturday, the future's bright in these positions."

Opposite number Stan Ternent said: "We did alright for 20 minutes but for the rest of the first half we weren't at the races and got exactly what we deserved.

"We were woeful and although we played for a bit of pride in the second half, the game was dead by then. It's not the sort of performance I expect from my lads."