Lee Clark praises Darren Randolph's 'man-of-the-match' performance

Lee Clark praised goalkeeper Darren Randolph for his man-of-the-match display as Ipswich boss Mick McCarthy bemoaned his side’s continued bad luck.

The Irish stopper made a series of saves to earn Blues a share of the spoils after Chris Burke had cancelled out Christophe Berra’s opener.

McCarthy said that Blues had used their ‘get out of jail free card’ as they salvaged a point.

And Clark was quick to praise his in-form stopper, although he insisted the rest of the team deserved credit, too. “Darren has made some good saves,” said Clark.

“He’s continued his impressive start to his time at the club.

“What we like about him is the whole package. It’s not just his saves, it’s the way he comes for crosses, his distribution and set-plays. I think he has shown everyone that he’s a first class acquisition.

“We knew about him before his arrival.

“What impressed me was when we had a meeting, the way he talked, his ambition personally and what he wanted to achieve.

“It’s not just his goalkeeping, it’s his personality, how he’s a driven young man, and now we’re absolutely delighted with him.

“We’re a bit frustrated as a group though.

“In the first half we were too negative.

“At least in the second half they were true to themselves as individuals.

“In the first half Darren had more touches than any player in my team because we went back to him too often.

“But we improved after the break.”

McCarthy said his side did enough to win three matches and admitted the result felt like a loss.

“I thought we were excellent and we deserved to win," he said.

“You talk about bad luck, but that was bad luck, no doubt about it.

“We came up against a goalkeeper who was in very good form.

“They’ve had their get out of jail free card.

“I hope we get a slice of it at some stage.

“I feel like we have been beaten.

“We did enough to win three games.

“I thought we were excellent.”