Bristol Rovers boss Joey Barton believes Ipswich Town showed just why they have been tipped for promotion during the two sides’ game last night.

The Blues ran out 2-0 winners at Portman Road, with Conor Chaplin and Lee Evans securing victory with goals in either half.

The margin of victory could have been much greater, though, had the Blues been more clinical in front of goal during a rampant spell of attacking pressure during the opening 30 minutes.

"I thought they started really brightly and showed why they are everyone’s tip for promotion," Barton said.

"We kind of weathered that early part of the storm and then conceded just as we were getting over it.”

Rovers ended the night with only nine men on the field, after Bobby Thomas and Alfie Kilgour were shown late red cards.

"That is effectively game over, 2-0 down here and I’m making a couple of substitutions with one eye on the Lincoln game on Saturday,” Barton continued.

“In the midst of that, the two centre-halves in their infinite wisdom decide to get themselves dismissed from the pitch in two weird and wonderful ways.

"We’ve got to remember what we’re doing this year. The reality is at this moment I wish we could compete with Ipswich and the like, but when they’re dropping £1.5million on a left-back and £800,000 here, they’ve got two teams in effect who are maybe players above the level, players who could get Championship moves.

Ipswich Star: Bobby Thomas received the second yellow card ahead of being sent off.Bobby Thomas received the second yellow card ahead of being sent off. (Image: Steve Waller)

"It does show the reality of where we are now. We never came to a stadium like this last season in League Two and we’ve got to build blocks of our team. It doesn’t help when we’ve got players who aren’t available via injury and it doesn’t help when I think we get stupid and needless sending-offs via our own stupidity."

Discussing the game further, and some of the decisions made by referee Alan Young, Barton said: "I thought we settled after the first goal and we had a couple of half chances on the counter-attack.

“I thought Harvey Saunders showed a bit of naivety, he maybe should’ve done what their boy did and flung himself on the floor because Leif Davis at that point was the last man and they might have been reduced to 10 men. He’s tried to stay on his feet and we don’t get rewarded in the modern game.

"You see the boy with Alfie Kilgour. Alf says he doesn’t touch him and he throws himself to the floor and Alf is dismissed. Maybe we’ve got to get a bit cuter and utilise the opportunity to take the opponent down to 10 men.

"I’m not one to advocate diving and cheating, but clearly at this level, you benefit from it. (Sam) Morsy pulls back Antony Evans after 10 minutes. It is probably the most blatant yellow card you’ll ever see and he doesn’t book him. Ten minutes after that, he pulls him back again and he books him for it.

"I said to him at half time the first one was worse than the second one, and the ref accepted it. It doesn’t help us."