Ipswich Town 3-0 Leicester City - Snow Joke For Sven As Foxes Frozen Out By Tractor Boys

Last updated : 20 December 2010 By Joe Harris

At kick off, the pitch was covered in thick snow and, with the white stuff showing no sign of slowing, many were shocked that referee Stuart Atwell allowed the game to be played in such conditions.

However, whilst many Foxes fans will try to blame the snow for their sides loss, there can be no hiding from the fact that they were beaten by the better team on the day. Roy Keane's men simply adapted to the Arctic blast better than the freezing Foxes.

The Tractor Boys ran riot on an awful City defence in the first half and 3-0 was not a generous score line by any means. Ipswich were as brilliant as Leicester were awful.

Fallon teed up Norris on six minutes to fire the home side in front before Jason Scotland tried his luck from 25 yards to make it two before finishing off a fine move from O'Connor to give Ipswich a convincing first half lead.

Half time was then extended to 20 minutes whilst the Ipswich ground staff, armed with spades and not a lot else - desperately tried to shovel what appeared to be several inches of snow off the Portman Road pitch.

The players did finally appear for the second half but play was halted in bizarre fashion after 58 minutes when the referee decided it was time for another shovel operation.

It's clear to see that, had the scoreline not favoured Roy Keane's men so handsomely, the referee would have called it a day. However, such was the anger on Roy Keane's face that Atwood simply bottled it and decided to bring the players back out to finish the match.

Besides, it would have been almighty harsh on Ipswich - desperately trying to end a run of six straight defeats - had the match been postponed at this stage.

Leicester thought they had found a life line after 65 minutes however when Curtis Davies converted a Paul Gallagher inswinging free kick, but the referee disallowed the goal for offside and so any chance of an unlikely comeback was cut short before it could begin - a bit like this fixture should have been.

As expected, Eriksson bemoaned the referee's decision to let the match go ahead. The Swede said: 'You go skiing on snow, not play football.

'Who wants to see a game in conditions like that? It was being shown worldwide but was very bad PR for football.'

'Had it been 0-0 at the break, he would have said no more play. But at 3-0 to them, it was very difficult for him to do that.' He added.

On the back of this defeat, City slip down to 16th place in the Championship table.