Ipswich Town manager Gary O’Neil felt his team’s 1-1 draw with Nottingham Forest at Portman Road last night was a good point after his team had to show a different side of themselves.

In wet and blustery conditions, Forest went in front through Neco Williams in the 13th minute and had the majority of chances throughout, but Julio Enciso levelled four minutes before the break with the first goal of his permanent spell at the club and also his first at Portman Road.

“Hard-fought, tough opposition, tough conditions,” O’Neil said. “Never quite able to get our style on top of theirs, really, maybe a little spell in the first half where we got some control.

“But one where we had to show another side to make sure that we got something from the game.

“Could have still won it, of course, had some decent moments, Clarkey (Jack Clarke) came on and had a big chance again, but one where togetherness and shutting up a little bit and going a little bit safer managed to get us through to the finish line, and I’m proud of the players because not easy to do that.

“So, a good point for us. We wanted to win, but Nottingham Forest are a good side, as I said before, I knew it was going to be a tricky game.”

O’Neil accurately predicted problems Forest would cause his side at his pre-match press conference, with their fast transitioning causing the Blues plenty of problems.

“Early in the second half, I felt we needed to abort trying to outplay them,” the Blues boss continued. “We stuck with it for a while, we had some great moments from it where we were able to show the quality that we have, and we were able to play through.

“But I felt just too many times we lost simple balls in dangerous areas, and it was only a matter of time before we got punished on one of those transitions.

“So, I made the call to go safer, just avert risk a little bit, go more direct, didn’t play as much.

“That meant that we lost some control and we had to suffer a bit, but it did stop the real big transition chances coming against us, which I think were going to cost us the game eventually.

“Just a call that I made that I thought gave the lads long enough to see if we could, even in the tough conditions, try and find our way to pick through them and look after the ball, but I felt it was going to swing in their favour, so we went a bit safer, a bit more direct, the lesser of two evils.

“Nottingham Forest are very good at that as well, but I thought at least it did give us a bit of a platform, something we could hang in and fight and scrap, and thankfully the lads managed to get us to the finish line without conceding another goal because Nottingham Forest were pushing pretty hard for some of that second half.”

The big talking point was referee Tom Bramall’s decision not to red-card Issa Diop for sending James McAtee flying when breaking towards the Town area early in the second half.

Bramall initially saw no foul at all, then, after a VAR review into whether Diop was denying an obvious goalscoring opportunity, took a second look at the side of the pitch before deeming McAtee to be taking the ball away from goal and therefore leaving Leif Davis in a position to get back to cover.

“I’ve watched it once live from the technical area,” O’Neil said when asked about the incident. “It’s a foul, Issa misses the ball, catches McAtee. I thought Leif Davis was in a good position to cover, I thought McAtee’s touch was slightly big and going away from goal, probably.

“So I think they came to a real good conclusion with a good process, but I haven’t watched it back, I haven’t slowed it down, I’m going purely off what I saw on the field.

“It looked like Leif was in a good enough position that I don’t think you would be able to say that it was a definite goalscoring opportunity where James McAtee gets through against Walts (Christian Walton) without Leif getting back.

“I think they made the right call, but it can obviously go for or against us. It’s one of those that you’ll probably have people on either side of the fence on. I think they came to the right conclusion.

“And then from there, we dug in, waiting for the top corner to bulge when Clarkey came in on to his famous right foot.

“But unfortunately we have to settle for a good point, and we get ready to go away to Hull next weekend and see if we can add some more.”