IPSWICH TOWN 1, Wanderers 2

ON the basis that it is better to be safe than sorry, Wanderers would be wise to focus on Sam Allardyce's safety target rather than Kevin Nolan's.

The manager has said from the start that 40 points will be enough to secure another season in the Premiership but the confident young midfielder reckons that, with 19 points now in the bag, Wanderers are already "half way there".

The fact that 35 points would have been enough to beat the drop last season suggests they may need only 16 more but Bolton fans know from their own bitter experience that even 40 was not enough to keep them up in 97-98!

"But why all these negative vibes?" as Donald Sutherland repeatedly asked in the classsic Kelly's Heroes.

The way Wanderers are going, they should have no fears about finishing in the bottom three - or anywhere near it for that matter.

One can understand their reluctance to start looking up since there is a lot of football still to be played but face the facts: Ipswich secured a UEFA Cup place last season (they were even fancied for Champions League qualification at one stage) and they were only two points better off than Wanderers at the 13-match mark.

George Burley's reward for steering his Tractor Boys to those breathtakingly heady heights is a showdown with mighty Inter Milan on Thursday. No-one deserves it more - but they will go into that European showpiece knowing that their hard-earned mantle as the Premiership's Surprise Guys has now been taken up by one of their arch-adversaries from the Nationwide League days.

Actually they could not have had a better dress rehearsal for the Inter clash - a test of their ability to find a way round a well-organised defence - but it is to be hoped, for the sake of English football, that the Italians don't prove as stubborn as Wanderers did yesterday.

That they conceded a goal in injury time at the end of the first half, merely served to give Ipswich hope and to create tension and excitement for the 22,000 crowd and those watching on Sky Sports. But, strictly speaking, even that should not have counted since young Nolan had his shirt tugged by Sixto Peralta before the Argentinian (on loan from Inter, coincidentally) laid the ball off for Matt Holland to rifle in.

But Wanderers, as Allardyce so proudly pointed out, are no mugs and, although they made life difficult for themselves with that late lapse, they dug in to spoil and frustrate everything Ipswich had to offer.

On reflection, the two goal lead they stormed into inside 25 minutes - a Gudni Bergsson header on six minutes for his first goal of the season and another quality finish from Michael Ricketts for his 10th - never really came under any serious threat. For all their possession and territorial advantage, a couple of powerful and reasonably-aimed long-range efforts from Mark Venus and Martijn Reuser and a Peralta shot into the side netting, which Jussi Jaaskelainen appeared to have covered anyway, was the sum total of their strikes.

It was nerve-wracking at the time since, for some reason, we tend not to believe Wanderers are quite as capable as they are. But we should. They racked up a club record 14 away wins last season with their tailor-made style of solid defending, well-organised midfield work and swift, lethal counter-attacking and that same formula has so far worked a treat in the Premiership.

Their current away record is the envy of all but the best in the top flight. If they can maintain it - and there is no reason why they should not - they will continue to make their presence felt in the top half of the table.

And that is where they should be setting their sights.

Wanderers might not have the resources of Chelsea, who are one place ahead on the strength of their marginally superior goal difference, but they know their jobs - every man Jack of them - and they are prepared to work their proverbial socks off to make up in endeavour, expertise and experience what they may lack in star quality.

In Bergsson they have a captain who has consistently led by example and this latest offering from the 36-year-old was right out of the top drawer.

Having scored 10 goals from centre-back last season, the skipper has been ribbed in the dressing room for having gone so long without finding the net this time. Having to keep tabs on the likes of Michael Owen, Mark Viduka, Thierry Henry and other world class strikers at the other might have something to do with that but no-one - not even the powerful Titus Bramble - was going to stop him getting on the end of Per Frandsen's corner to finally open this season's account.

His involvement in the Ricketts' goal - a neatly scooped pass that paved the way for the hit-man to make Ipswich keeper Matteo Sereni look rather foolish - was a reward for hanging around after an earlier set-piece and making a nuisance of himself.

But Bergsson's best work is undoubtedly done at the other end. He is surrounded by good, experienced back-four players (was this really only the 12th time Mike Whitlow has played centre-back?) and enjoys the benefit of having Paul Warhurst playing a highly-effective, if at times over-zealous, defensive midfield role. But the captain, as he has done on most occasions of late, stood head and shoulders above the rest.

There was a period early in the second half when Wanderers defended a touch too deep for their own good and that organisation that has served them so well, so often, looked to be deserting them.

It didn't look good when Warhurst was substituted to save him from a red card after he had escaped a second booking by the skin of his teeth. But a quick re-jig saw Frandsen assume the role - as he did so effectively at Old Trafford. Dean Holdsworth was sent on to hold and make the most of whatever possession Wanderers could muster and Ricketts withdrew into midfield. From that point on, the third away win of the season was always a good bet.

Ipswich might have fancied their chances of a point but they never really looked like getting it.

You feel for Burley, who saw his top scorer, Marcus Stewart, suffer a double fracture of his jaw in a training ground collision with Pable Counago on Saturday and who has seen his side win just once in the Premiership this season. After leading his team to fifth place in May and qualifying for Europe, he does not deserve the stick he is getting from certain sections of the crowd.

But when you are down, you are down and his run of bad luck was summed up when Ulrich Le Pen, his new £1.5 million signing from France, was stretchered off in the closing moments - just 11 minutes after racing on to make his Premiership debut.