DOUGIE Freedman felt “mugged” after defeat against Ipswich – and not for the first time.

After Michael Chopra had completed a smash-and-grab victory over Wanderers at the Reebok in December, Carlos Edwards stepped forward with his first goal in two years to sink them again two minutes from time at Portman Road.

Ipswich will feel they were more entitled to three points on this occasion, having carved out some good chances, but that didn't stop Freedman cursing his luck late on.

“I felt Ipswich played a certain way against us for 60 minutes,” he said.

“We’ve made some very good starts in games but credit to them, they pinned us back with a lot of long balls and that put us on the back foot. We dug in there and I was very pleased to see that we stayed strong.

“Let’s not beat about the bush, we got mugged with five minutes to go. I felt for 30 minutes we had created opportunities to win the game.”

Freedman was not about to get too down about the result and did not have too many complaints with his team’s application on the day.

“I am disappointed in the result, I think we should be, but I’m not with the effort and the endeavour to get a goal. I think there are a lot of positives there,” he said.

“I feel we are a team that can compete with anybody. It was a very physical game and they play a lot of long balls into channels and we coped with it very well. Sixty minutes in we controlled it, possibly could have tested their goal a little bit more, but performance-wise I thought we did okay.”

The introduction of Jay Emmanuel-Thomas and Michael Chopra from the bench gave Ipswich momentum, with the former beating Sam Ricketts to cross from the byline for Edwards’ winner.

Some of the Wanderers players had claimed that the ball had gone out for a throw before Emmanuel-Thomas had started his mazy run, but having defended a raft of crosses there was a sense of disappointment in the manager’s voice that his side had failed to clear their lines one last time.

“When people hit the byline and cross, it’s very dangerous because it can eliminate your back three,” he said.

“But having said that, we were in the right places, they got a ricochet. It’s disappointing but if you look at the performance we shouldn’t get too down. I think we did okay and enough to win the game.”