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Jack Clarke again scored twice as Ipswich, after four straight top-flight defeats since the third-round three-goal victory over Bristol Rovers, reached the last 16 of the FA Cup for the first time since 2007.
Coventry, last season’s semi-finalists, also changed their kit for charity, to navy blue, but the Sky Blues can now refocus on their push for the playoffs that has become a realistic target since Frank Lampard’s arrival.
This was Ipswich’s biggest win since they beat Sheffield Wednesday 6-0 last March, back in the days when winning promotion to the Premier League was the biggest dream on their horizon. Now it is all about retaining that status although McKenna can evidently trust his second string on this evidence, even in all pink, for cup duties.
It was around this time last year that these teams each played Maidstone United, in successive rounds of the Cup, alongside the day job of pursuing a place in the Premier League. While Ipswich were humiliated by the non-leaguers but gained promotion, Coventry knocked Maidstone out in the next round and went all the way to Wembley where they memorably came back from 3-0 down to take Manchester United to extra-time and a disallowed winner.
But their league form dropped off coming into this season so much that Mark Robins, a legendary figure in these parts for leading the club from League Two to within a Wembley penalty shootout of the top flight in 2023, left in November. What price cup glory?
Kieran McKenna made Ipswich’s priorities all too clear with his team selection for this fourth-round tie and yet, with his second string 3-1 up by half-time, it is they who progress to the last 16 when they could in all truth probably do without the distraction as they …
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