Ipswich Town captain sends blunt promotion warning to Leeds United amid £70m claim

Ipswich Town captain Sam Morsy insists his side have what it takes to match Leeds United and Southampton in the Championship promotion race, despite the vast difference in squad value.

All three sides look set to fight for just one automatic promotion place, with Leicester City likely champions despite losing against Middlesbrough over the weekend. Leeds currently occupy that second spot but have both Southampton and Ipswich hot on their heels in what is set to be one of the most thrilling promotion races in a long time.

Expectations on Leeds and Southampton were always huge, given the pair had just dropped down from the Premier League and been able to keep hold of some top-level players. Having only come up from League One this season, Ipswich are undoubtedly the underdogs but Morsy is backing his side to match the financial powerhouses above them.

“They’re tough teams, no doubt about it, but so are we," Morsy told TWTD. "We all have different qualities – people speak about Leeds having a £70million frontline, Southampton’s Premier League strikers and stuff like that, but we know what we’ve got, very good players, an excellent manager and a really good team spirit. 

"We’ve been together for a few years and we’ve got the experience of what we did last season in terms of going on a long unbeaten run and sticking together. Everybody’s got their good things that they’ll hang onto but I like where we’re at. We’re really strong and we know we’re going to have to dig in and do a lot of things right.

“We have to enjoy each moment, but we’ve just got to focus on ourselves. Why would we focus on Southampton’s form? We’d just be depressed every week! It was the longest unbeaten run in their history. Obviously, we are aware of the other teams’ results, but we don’t devote any energy to it. It would just be a waste of our energy and we need it all for our own games. That’s what we have been doing and we’ve won the last two."

Such is the competitiveness at the top of the Championship that all of the top-four would be comfortably clear in just about any other season. Leeds are 10 points better off at this point of the campaign than they were during the 2019/2020 promotion season under Marcelo Bielsa, but could be back in third when they host Leicester on Friday evening. 

Southampton and Ipswich both have games in hand over the Whites, against Hull City and Rotherham respectively this evening.