Keane's men can carve out a 1-0 success.

By Mike Holden

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	1pt Ipswich to win 1-0 at 7/1 (Stan James).	Town can repeat the success of their last home game with another solitary strike.

Ipswich v Sheffield Wednesday - Sky Sports 1 (Saturday 1720 GMT)

With only one win in eight attempts on home soil so far this season, backing Ipswich at even money this weekend isn't a bet for the faint-hearted but it's difficult to escape the feeling that the Tractor Boys have turned the corner in recent weeks.

A scrappy 1-0 win over Derby on the last day of October was hardly going to provoke a giddy response from Roy Keane but we did finally see a smile from the Irishman and we should expect his troops to be benefitting from a lighter mood around their Playford Road training complex.

That victory over the Rams has also paved the way for previous results to be painted in a positive light with Town now five unbeaten following a subsequent 1-1 draw with fellow strugglers Reading at the Madejski a fortnight ago.

Ipswich created the better chances and probably should have won that game in all honesty but nobody is going to make a drama over such a small detail after what they've been through, so expect the hosts to be relaxed and on the front foot from the first whistle.

For Sheffield Wednesday, the focus for this game seems to surround giving a better representation of themselves in front of the television cameras.

This will be our third live viewing of the Owls and on the previous two occasions they were slow out of the blocks and found themselves with a mountain to climb long before the interval.

Only 15 minutes had elapsed when Darius Henderson fired bitter rivals Sheffield United into a 2-0 lead in the Steel City derby at Bramall Lane in September, while Henri Lansbury put them in an identical position with 26 minutes on the clock a month ago.

So the instruction from Brian Laws ought to be simple: keep things tight early on.

All of which might make some appeal of the general even money quotes about the first goal coming after 27 minutes, although we're going to swerve that chain of thought because we feel there's more questions than answers surrounding both sides at present.

The key stat to consider is that neither the home team or away team has scored twice in a game involving Ipswich for nearly two months, but rather than go in heavy on the under 2.5 goals market at odds-on the preferred course of action is to dip a toe in the water on the correct score market.

Therefore, we'll stake our claim with a point on Ipswich to win 1-0 at a stand-out 7/1 with Stan James.

After seven botched attempts at Portman Road, including four 1-1 draws in the previous five, the Tractor Boys finally delivered the prototype performance in their last home fixture and this mission should prove no more taxing.

So long as concentration remains at a reasonably high level and they avoid making any silly individual errors, they should be expected to carve Wednesday open at least once.