Ipswich assistant manager Stuart Taylor felt his team deserved their victory after a hard-fought 1-0 win against strugglers Burton

Mark McGuinness’ first senior goal grabbed all the points as he rose at the back post to head home Alan Judge’s cross from a short free-kick routine in a game of precious few chances.

“It was definitely fine margins today,” said Taylor. “That is what this league is like. It is going to be very close.

“The game today wasn’t too different from what I expected. It was going to be a battle and a hard-fought game. It was going to be a case of picking up second balls and challenging for every ball, matching runners and really doing the ugly side of the game and being spot on with it.”

Both sides only mustered two attempts on target and Taylor knew his side were in a battle.

“Burton are a strong and physical side fighting for their lives to try and win games and get up the table.” he added. “They had an incredible win against Gillingham last week and we knew today was going to be a tough game so it was important that we matched that and showed the composure to get the ball down and play and try and impose ourselves on the game.”

Taylor was pleased to see his skipper Luke Chambers on hand to deny Charles Vernam with probably the clearest chance of the afternoon just before half-time.

“Chambers was in the right place and threw himself in front of it which was great. We didn’t have an abundance of opportunities. That was their only one and we had one or two more but I thought we deserved to win the game.”

Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink was left to rue defeat in his first game back in the Pirelli Stadium dugout as he looks to save the Brewers from relegation.

“I thought the performance on its own was very good,” he said. “It was better than Gillingham overall, only the result didn’t go with it.

“We didn’t give them anything at all. They had one chance and that was saved well by the goalkeeper but we should have scored in the second half and we were the better team. We played against a very good team that we made look quite ordinary.

“We need a bit of quality in the final third to have more shots and more end product and that is something we have to work on a bit harder.

Conceding from a set piece was particularly hard for Hasselbaink to take having worked so hard on Albion’s defensive discipline.

“It took a deflection,” he said. “It set Lucas Akins at the back post a bit off. Lucas was tremendous but it was very disappointing. We shouldn’t have given the free kick away. We missed a header and from there conceded a free kick and that was disappointing.”