Ipswich Town captain sends final-day warning to Leeds United as Championship promotion miracle needed

Ipswich Town captain Sam Morsy is under no illusions that Saturday’s final-day clash against Huddersfield Town will be no walkover, insisting his side will run themselves ‘into the ground’ to beat Leeds United to automatic promotion.

Ipswich put themselves firmly in the driving seat for a top-two finish after beating Coventry City 2-1 on Tuesday evening, with Kieffer Moore and Cameron Burgess on target for the away side. The Tractor Boys are now three points clear of Leeds with just one game remaining for each.

Any result at home to the virtually relegated Huddersfield Town will guarantee they join Leicester in the automatic spots and consign Leeds to play-off nerves. But Morsy insists no one at Portman Road will take anything for granted and there will be no celebrations until their fate is guaranteed.

“Of course, we’ve got belief in every game we can win,” Morsy told TWTD of his side’s final-day clash. “We’ll go out and try and win it, we’ll run ourselves into the ground, we’ll approach the game with humility. We’ll give it everything that we’ve got and after 90 plus however minutes we’ll see where we are.

“It’s never an easy game. To play in the Championship you have to sacrifice and you have to be very good players, so undoubtedly they’re very good players. They’re a good team with a good manager so we have to be at our best.”

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Disappointing though it may be for those in West Yorkshire, automatic promotion would cap off an incredible campaign for Ipswich who have defied all odds to keep pace with Leicester, Leeds and Southampton. Kieran McKenna’s side only came up from League One last season and consecutive promotions would see them back in the Premier League for the first time in 22 years.

“You don’t really think about it, to be fair,” Morsy added of Ipswich being so close to their top-flight return. “Obviously the goal was to become a really good team and to keep improving. We’ve managed to do that and we’ve gradually done that. We started the season really well – we just have to continue and keep going.”

Leeds will likely be left frustrated knowing they have done the double over both Leicester and Ipswich but failed to back it up with consistent enough results elsewhere. Farke’s side looked on course for a top-two finish but have been below par since returning from the March international break.

Friday’s 4-0 defeat at Queens Park Rangers all but confirmed a place in the play-offs, a part of the season Leeds do not have fond memories of. The Whites have failed in all five attempts to go up via that avenue across the Championship and League One.

A third-placed finish would see Leeds up against one of Norwich City, West Brom or Hull City in the playoff semi-finals. With Southampton also facing one of the aforementioned trio and the winner of each meeting at Wembley on Sunday, May 26.