Jack Clarke came off the bench to score Ipswich's winner against WBA with his fifth goal of the seasonRex Features

Jack Clarke celebrates scoring his late winner for Ipswich

Kieran McKenna's substitutions paid off as Jack Clarke bagged a late winner against WBA at Portman Road with his fifth goal of the season.

McKenna threw on Clarke, Ivan Azon and Jens Cajuste and all three combined to score within seven minutes.

Cajuste won the ball on the edge of the West Brom box to feed Azon and when his shot was parried by Baggies goalkeeper Josh Griffiths, Clarke fired home into the roof of the net in the 83rd minute.

Ipswich fully deserved to end their two-match losing run and West Brom created very little.

They remain in 11th place, two points off the play-off places, ahead of Saturday's later games, while Ipswich are now just a point behind the Baggies.

McKenna will be delighted to get their promotion campaign back on track after Wednesday's horror show when they lost 3-0 at home to Charlton.

West Brom only mustered one effort on target in the dying minutes as they tried in vain to salvage a point, having gifted Ipswich such a soft goal after defending so well for so long.

It was all Ipswich as West Brom sat back and attempted to soak up the hosts' pressure, with Jaden Philogene a bright spark for the home side.

He had a fine right-foot shot brilliantly saved by Griffiths before the visiting goalkeeper held another effort from the winger.

Jack Taylor's direct run ended with him dragging a shot wide, before Norway midfielder Sindre Egeli saw a drive blocked.

Ipswich maintained the pressure and Taylor found Marcelino Nunez in the box, only for the Town striker to shoot wide.

But the home side were getting closer and Egeli scuffed a left-foot effort past the near post when he should have hit the target.

The pressure finally paid off seven minutes from time after some great initial pressing, and the Tractor Boys are motoring again.

Player of the match

J. Clarke
8.42
47 J. Clarke
8.42
32 M. Núñez
7.53
14 J. Taylor
7.50
11 J. Philogene
7.48
28 C. Walton
7.29
4 C. Kipré
7.22
12 J. Cajuste
7.16
5 A. Matusiwa
7.13
26 D. O'Shea
7.01
31 Iván Azón
7.00
8 S. Egeli
6.90
3 L. Davis
6.89
19 D. Furlong
6.85
29 C. Akpom
6.32
23 S. Szmodics
6.08
9 G. Hirst
5.37
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After the opportunity to rate players has closed, the score displayed represents the average from all the submissions by BBC Sport users.

'Good way to win the game' - reaction

Ipswich boss Kieran McKenna told BBC Radio Suffolk: "For the players, it was important to get the result and it was a good way for us to win as a group. If I was to pick a way to win the game for the development of the group, it would be something like this.

"It was a game that was difficult. We played well in the first half, but we didn't get our reward. Then a lot of things we talked about during the week when things aren't going our way, we have to stay calm, stay together, do our jobs, stay focused and have trust.

"If we don't win the game early, we can win it late.

"It was a good way to win the game – clean sheet with a good impact from the bench and strong resilience."

McKenna: 'A good way for us to win'

West Brom boss Ryan Mason told BBC WM goalkeeper Josh Griffiths needs to learn from his mistake in gifting Ipswich their goal from a poor pass out.

"It's something he needs to learn from. We all need to learn quickly. It's disappointing to concede in the nature we did. At the end of the day, we've given them a goal and we need to improve.

"It's disappointing and we all need to take responsibility and all of us have to learn from it.

"We lacked a bit of creativity in the final third. In the second half, we had a 10-minute spell, where it was our moment to attack them and try and cause them some problems, but that didn't really materialise and that's disappointing."

Mason: 'We need to improve and be more effective'

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