Bournemouth take five straight wins to Ipswich Town
Ipswich Town host a Bournemouth side who have won five in a row and conceded once. Recent form, the two previous meetings and what they suggest.
By Harvey Watkins,
The figure that shapes this Matchday 10 meeting at Portman Road Stadium is a simple one. Bournemouth have conceded one goal in their last five matches and won all of them. Ipswich Town have not kept a clean sheet in that same stretch. Sunday's 14:00 kick-off sets a side that has been hard to score against and quick to punish against one that has struggled to close games out.
Ipswich Town's recent form
Ipswich have one win from their last five: D D L W L, with seven goals scored and eight conceded. The single victory came at home, 2-1 against Fulham on 10 October. Since then they have lost 3-2 at Man City, drawn 1-1 at home to Nottingham Forest and drawn 2-2 at Hull City.
There is more to that run than the bare sequence suggests. Ipswich have scored in four of the five, and scoring twice away at Man City is not nothing. The 0-0 they would need to frustrate a strong attack has not come, though. They have conceded in every game, and the two draws show leads or parity that could not be turned into wins.
Bournemouth's run
Bournemouth's last five read W W W W W, with 14 goals scored and one conceded. Four of those wins came without conceding: 3-0 against Milan, 3-0 away at Man Utd, 3-0 against Aston Villa and 2-0 against Leeds United. The one goal against came in a 3-1 win away at Sparta Praha on 5 November.
What stands out is the consistency of the margin. Every win was by at least two goals, and they scored at least twice in each match. Three of the five were at home, but the wins at Old Trafford's opponents Man Utd and at Sparta Praha show the form has travelled.
Previous meetings
The two most recent meetings both went to the away side, and both finished 2-1. Bournemouth won 2-1 at Ipswich Town in December 2024. Ipswich returned the result at Bournemouth in April 2025. Two matches is a small record, and both are well over a year old, so it says little about Sunday beyond the fact that neither side has found the other easy to beat.
How it might go
On recent evidence Bournemouth are the stronger side, and it would be hard to argue otherwise. They are scoring freely and conceding almost nothing, while Ipswich have let in at least one goal in every game of their last five.
The case for Ipswich rests on their ability to score. They have found the net against Man City, Nottingham Forest and Hull City in recent weeks, and if they can do the same against a defence that has been breached only once in five, the game becomes far less predictable. Runs of five straight wins do end, and the last time these two met it was the visiting side, Ipswich, who came away with the points.
My view is that Bournemouth deserve to be regarded as favourites here, with Ipswich's best route being to stay level for as long as possible and make their chances count. That is a view, not a certainty. Ipswich's habit of scoring in most games means this may be closer than Bournemouth's recent scorelines imply.