IPSWICH Town’s young guns produced an eye-catching performance before running out of steam and slipping to a 2-1 defeat against West Ham United.

The sides met in a pre-season friendly at Portman Road on Saturday and a bumper crowd of 15,246 – including 4,175 from the Hammers – will have been impressed with manager Paul Hurst’s first match on Suffolk soil.

Heads could have dropped after the setback of falling behind early on but that certainly wasn’t the case.

Instead, reenergised, Ipswich took control and their young side played with a freedom and creativity not seen under previous boss Mick McCarthy.

They got the ball out wide, which was pleasing to see, and most certainly deserved their equalising goal scored by Ellis Harrison.

Town certainly started with a young-looking side, fielding four fledgling alongside trusted lieutenants like Luke Chambers, Jordan Spence and Jonas Knudsen.

Colchester’s Tristan Nydam, Flynn Downes, Andre Dozzell and Luke Woolfenden were in from the start – and all went on to give eye-catching accounts of themselves – and home fans were also treated to a first look at new recruits Harrison and Gwion Edwards.

Jordan Roberts, another summer addition, was on the bench, as was Chelsea loanee Trevoh Chalobah, who was been in Finland captaining England’s Under-19s at the European Championships and only returned on Friday.

In the very early stages, it looked like it might be a long afternoon for Town.

They fell behind within the first couple of minutes after conceding a wholly preventable goal.

Ryan Fredericks delivered a cross from the right and big-money signing Felipe Anderson was left unmarked, with the simplest of far-post headers, to make it 1-0.

However, Town recovered and were soon on level terms.

Dozzell was the architect with a delicious, perfectly-weighted through ball and striker Harrison endeared himself to the home faithful with a cool, casual flick past debutant keeper Lukasz Fabianski.

Town so nearly went in front shortly after and once again the man at the centre of things was Harrison.

Wolfenden played a superb, raking pass out wide to Freddie Sears, who, in turn, planted a perfect cross onto Harrison’s head.

However, with the visitors’ defence standing still, seemingly waiting for an offside flag, the striker could only direct his effort onto the left-hand post.

Town played with similar intensity at the start of the second half.

Edwards’ whipped-in cross caused panic in the Hammers box and Harrison should have done better when the ball fell kindly for him in the box, instead driving wide of the left-hand post.

At the other end, substitute Robert Snodgrass then forced a smart save from Bartosz Bialwkoski.

The Hammers grabbed their winner in the 70th minute when the lively Marko Arnautovic burst through the middle and very coolly slotted past Bialkowski.

But Ipswich nearly grabbed an equaliser in the latter stages when Downes was about to pounce on sub Grant Ward’s cross.

However, Pablo Zabaleta defended brilliantly to clear the danger.