McFadden kept his cool to slot the ball past former Everton team-mate Richard Wright in the 39th minute at Portman Road after Moritz Volz was penalised for handling Kemy Agustien’s enticing cross.

It was Blues’ first penalty since March, something that has left players and management puzzled.

McFadden said: “The last one was Man City, the soft one [Sun Jihai’s shoulder charge on Gary McSheffrey].

‘‘It’s been a while, we’ve seen other teams get penalties more or less every week and we’ve been thinking ‘when are we going to get one?’.

“We got one at last and although it may not have been deliberate, it was a definite handball. His arm was high. It didn’t just hit him.

“I don’t think they can have any complaints and it’s about time we got a little bit of luck.”

McFadden said he refused to be psyched-out by the Ipswich goalkeeper.

“I have played with Wrighty for a few years at Everton and I wasn’t so much nervous but I’ve hit loads of penalties into him and he’s usually good at stopping them.

“I thought I would just see where he went before striking it. I don’t have one side I put them, it depends how I feel.

‘‘I think I had about three different ideas in my mind. As long as it hits the back of the net, it doesn’t matter.”

Blues take on Swansea City at St Andrew’s tomorrow (3pm) and McFadden said they would replicate the determination evident in Suffolk.

“They didn’t really threaten us. Towards the end it was a bit typical, us hanging on there. Maybe it was a better performance in terms of work rate and attitude,’’ he said.

“The quality wasn’t there every minute but I think we had enough quality to see out the game.”

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