Ipswich Town will hope to improve their poor recent record at Blackburn Rovers when they make the trip to Ewood Park on Saturday.

However, Mick McCarthy's side have slowed down after an excellent start to the season and Blackburn will fancy their chances.

Blackburn

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Gary Bowyer's side failed to win any of their first seven league matches, but they have picked up four points out of six in the last two weeks to edge away from the drop zone.

First, they easily beat out-of-form Charlton Athletic before salvaging a last-gasp draw at Hull City last Saturday.

The Lancashire club have lost just one of their last five matches and key to that has been the return to form of Jordan Rhodes, who has scored five goals in four games after missing most of the opening month through injury.

Defensively, Blackburn have let in only 10 goals in nine league games this season and they have also not conceded at Ewood Park for over a month, keeping clean sheets in their last two; they haae not recorded three shutouts in a row since April 2014.

Three of Rovers' next four matches are at home and they will all test that sound defence, with Ipswich here and then Derby County and Burnley all top-10 sides that are aiming for promotion this season.

Recent form: LDLDWD

Ipswich

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The Tractor Boys led the way in the Championship with 10 points from their first four games, but since then they have managed just five from five to drop down to eighth and they are one of six sides on 15 points chasing Brighton & Hove Albion and Middlesbrough in the top two spots.

To throw a positive light on their current situation, Ipswich are unbeaten in three, but McCarthy would have wanted more than two points from their most recent league matches at home to Birmingham City and Bristol City.

Last time out against the Robins Ipswich took the lead shortly after half time but then conceded twice in three minutes to fall behind. Ryan Fraser came up with a late equaliser, but not being able to beat what is now the league's bottom side is a concern for a team who had one of the best home records last season.

They had faced Manchester United in the League Cup third round in midweek, but McCarthy changed his entire XI for the match at Old Trafford so there were no excuses of tiredness on Saturday.

Scoring has not been a problem for the Tractor Boys - they have found the back of the net in each of their last 21 league games (excluding playoffs) and only Middlesbrough have scored more this season.

However, they have the 20th-best defence and have conceded 11 in their last five league outings.

Recent Championship form: WLLWDD
Recent form (all competitions): LLWDLD

Team News

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McCarthy has a tricky decision when choosing who to play up front. Daryl Murphy and Freddie Sears got the nod against Bristol City, but David McGoldrick is likely to come in here and Murphy, who scored 27 goals last term but is yet to find the net this season, could be the man to drop out.

Giles Coke and Teddy Bishop remain out and they are the only Ipswich players unavailable.

For Blackburn, Hope Akpan could start after replacing Danny Guthrie early on against Hull, but Bowyer is unlikely to make many other changes.

Chris Taylor is back in contention after six months out injured and could be among the substitutes.

Blackburn possible starting lineup:
Steele; Henley, Hanley, Duffy, Olsson; Conway, Evans, Akpan, Lawrence, Marshall; Rhodes

Ipswich possible starting lineup:
Gerken; Chambers, Smith, Berra, Knudsen; Maitland-Niles, Skuse, Bru, Fraser; Sears, McGoldrick

Head To Head

These two last met at Ewood Park on the final day of last season and Rovers edged it 3-2, but Ipswich still scraped into the playoffs on goal difference.

That made it eight games without a win for Ipswich away at Blackburn and they have lost six in that run.

Rhodes has also scored in each of the last three encounters against his former club at Ewood.

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We say: Blackburn 1-1 Ipswich

Plenty points to these two sides cancelling each other out and it could be a frustrating afternoon for both sets of supporters.

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