Chris Lakey Alex Pearce has accepted full responsibility for his part in allowing Ipswich a way back into the East Anglian derby yesterday.

Chris Lakey

Alex Pearce has accepted full responsibility for his part in allowing Ipswich a way back into the East Anglian derby yesterday.

Having seen Ched Evans get the Canaries off to the best possible start with a goal after just four minutes, Pearce then suffered the ignominy of putting Danny Haynes' cross through his own net with just 12 minutes on the clock.

Pearce's muffed clearance from five yards was avoidable, and the 19-year-old accepted full responsibility for his part in Ipswich's comeback.

"I take complete responsibility for their first goal," said the on-loan Reading youngster. "The ball has come in and I've tried to clear it. It's come off my left on to my right, so, what can you do about it now in hindsight?

"You have to forget it as soon as you can really. When something like that happens you can't let it affect you and I tried not to let it affect me as much as I could, but it is just a disappointing day all round really."

City never built on the lead Evans had given them, and when Pearce put through his own net it signalled the start of almost constant Ipswich domination of the game.

"It's a disappointing day for everyone at the football club," Pearce added. "To get off to such a great start as we did - we didn't really kick on from that and we let them take control of the game, which is disappointing. We got off to a good start and then for 10 minutes we seemed to lose our heads a bit, whether that was because we were still focusing on the goal or whatever, I don't know really, we just looked ragged for 10 minutes, which cost us in the end.

"I don't know what was really going through our heads at the start of the game; we prepared for it in the right way."

Pearce, playing alongside the recalled Gary Doherty in the centre of City's defence, struggled to keep tabs on Ipswich dangerman Pablo Counago who, when not pestering them directly, was going deep to collect the ball before playing defence-splitting passes.

"He got the ball a lot of times and got a turn and he was facing us, me and Doc, and he kept slipping balls in between us, which was hurting us to be fair," Pearce added. "He's a good footballer and he played well today."

The consolation for the Canaries is that they are still ahead of a pack of half a dozen clubs all trying to keep out of the drop zone - and have consecutive home games, against West Brom and then Queens Park Rangers, in which to stay there.

"Next week we have another big game against West Brom at home and hopefully we can get the three points there," Pearce added.