Ipswich Town manager Gary O'Neil is backing his team to get a result against Liverpool at Portman Road. (Image: Ross Halls)
Ipswich Town manager Gary O'Neil is backing his team to get a result against Liverpool at Portman Road. (Image: Ross Halls)
Ipswich Town manager Gary O'Neil says he 'fully expects' his team to get a result against Liverpool under the Portman Road lights tomorrow night.
On day one in the job, the new boss bullishly claimed he was '100% sure' that he would keep the newly-promoted Blues in the Premier League.
And that belief has grown after an opening day home win against Sunderland, encouraging performance for much of last Sunday's 5-2 defeat at Manchester United and a transfer window that saw 14 players signed for in excess of £180m.
Liverpool arrive in Suffolk having had to come from behind in 2-2 draws against Newcastle and Nottingham Forest at the start of this campaign, but with an attack containing three £100m+ players in Bradley Barcola, Alexander Isak and Florian Wirtz.
"Their performances have been good. They could easily have won both matches and probably deserved to win both matches," said O'Neil, who was fulsome in his praise of new Reds boss Andoni Iraola.
"I'm sure they're thinking they've got a chance to add to their points tally, but so do we. That's the belief we have here.
"We need to make sure that no matter who comes to Portman Road, we make sure that we're right in the game. We've scored four goals in two games and we look a goal threat. We need to keep that going.
"There are hardly any clean sheets in the Premier League now. It's really, really difficult to keep the opposition at bay. The ball's in play much longer, set plays are huge, there's more and more attacking threat on the pitch - so you have to be able to score goals.
"It's Portman Road under the lights and I know the fans will be looking forward to it. My players trained excellently this morning, we've got fantastic energy in the group and you can tell they're looking forward to the challenge.
"I fully expect us to leave the stadium tomorrow night with more points than we arrived with."
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He continued: "No-one's moaning about playing Manchester United and Liverpool in the space of six days. The club has worked so hard to play against the best in the world and we have a real chance of taking something from the game.
"It's not like we're turning up to see how we do. No, no. We go to win and see if we can take three points. And we back ourselves to do so.
"We know the challenges that will be brought, but I'm sure, with the squad we've put together, teams will also see that we can hurt them with the quality that we have."
On the importance of a near 30,000 capacity crowd roaring his players on, O'Neil said: "Regardless of what sort of form we're in or what the previous result has been, I think every time we turn up there there's going to be this wall of noise right behind us to help push us through. That's going to be really, really important to us.
"Everyone should be really excited about this game. It's been a lot of work that has gone into getting the club back to this point. Some of the best players in world football are coming to Portman Road and we have a real chance of doing something against them as well.
"I will always be confident in this group. I want to make sure we connect with the fans again. Let's see what we can do."