Steve Clarke On Superb Ipswich Win

What a result! It was a brilliant evening at the Madejski Stadium with a superb 5-1 win against high flyers Ipswich Town. Goals from hat-trick hero Orlando Sa, Nick Blackman and a brilliant strike from Oliver Norwood secured the points on a dominant evening.

As you can imagine, we had a very happy manager, but he wasn't getting too carried away, Steve Clarke told the official club website, "It's a good performance, although it's only one performance. Nine points from six is not something to be too carried away with. Obviously we're very pleased that we scored at home, pleased we won, it's important to put that to bed. We'd had two 0-0 draws, supporters want to be entertained and they can go home happy tonight.

"Anybody who looked at our results might have thought we'd had a slow start to the season, but I kept saying that we'd made a decent start. We'd been solid and performances had been really good. Tonight obviously was a different level of performance in terms of attacking. But we also had to show defensive resolve, especially in the first half, because Ipswich gave us a good game.

"Second half we tweaked the system, I think that made a difference. At half time we said it was a big challenge, I sat Tshibola in front of the two centre halves to give them some protection and I think that helped us. Then the timing of the third goal from Nick, and after that we could pick them off."

Last night saw the debut of our new attacking trio in Sa, Blackman and Matěj Vydra and they really were fantastic, Clarke added: "The front three were good and combined well. All three of them have been working with me since the transfer deadline, they've been in every day and in seven and eight sessions they've already picked up a good understanding, which is great for tonight and hopefully the future too.

"It was a good counter-attacking performance, but we also scored first which opened the game up. It was a great cross from Nick and a terrific header from Orlando. Then we defended really badly for the equaliser which is not like us, we've been defending well. I thought Ipswich in the first half put us under more pressure than any team has this season.

"Orlando got his goals, he's been really good for us since he came in. His movement is good, he's a striker who needs support around him, dynamic players, and he had that tonight in Vydra and Blackman, who both supported him very well."

Even though Sa did get man of the match, Blackman put in another fantastic display, he added: "Nick has done very well since the start of the season, same again tonight."

Norwood has also had a fantastic start to the season and scored a brilliant 30-yarder strike late on, Steve said: "Everyone knows Ollie has got that in the bag, it was the icing on the cake for me, and for us it's been a really good night."

Now a couple of days break before we host Derby on Tuesday night at the Madejski and Clarke is hoping for a big crowd, "Hopefully the supporters who saw us on the television will say they want to have a bit of this on Tuesday. Derby will be up there at the end of the season, now I'll be off on the plane to Manchester tomorrow, then to Preston to see them first hand and their threats,"