John Smith's PNE Fans' Panel verdict: Defeat was all we deserved...and it could have been heavier

Ryan Lowe the "Deepdale King" did not have any horses available for Saturday's trip to Ipswich and unfortunately all of his men could not put our team back together again with this third successive heavy defeat, meaning that we remained stricken just like the nursery rhyme character Humpty Dumpty.

The high flying "Tractor Boys" have powered their way up to the top end of the table and were certainly on full throttle again in the first half in which we looked heavy legged and sluggish.

We had not won in our last seven league visits to the home of Suffolk's only Football League club and at half-time it looked very unlikely we would see a repeat of that last win in August 2008

At half-time I was dreading the long journey home fearing it would be coming after being on the end of a proper hiding. Being a long-in-the-tooth North Ender, it is always "the hope what kills you " and I thought back to a past visit to Portman Road in 2005 when we overturned a two-goal half-time deficit into a memorable 3-2 win.

A more adventurous, attacking-wise, half-time triple substitution and an early second half Ben Whiteman goal gave me a brief glimmer of hope we could salvage something from this game. However the home side put the game to bed when they regained their two goal advantage with just over ten minutes left.

Worryingly for me our goalkeeper Freddie Woodman was undoubtedly our man of the match in my opinion and but for his exploits between the sticks is could of finished six , seven,or even 8-2 .

Aside from a 20-minute purple patch in the first 20 minutes of the second half, we were second best in all departments and got the defeat we deserved.