Alex Palmer Chasing First EPL Shut-Out To Help Keep Ipswich Town Up

With just ten games remaining, Ipswich Town goalkeeper Alex Palmer knows time is running out for the relegation-threatened side to pick up Premier League points.

Ipswich Town are now at least two wins from safety having recorded just three league victories all season. They welcome high-flying Nottingham Forest to Portman Road tomorrow. Forest defeated Ipswich 1-0 in the league earlier in the season and only last week eliminated the Suffolk side from The FA Cup in a penalty shoot-out after a tense 1-1 draw at the City Ground.

Only one missed kick separated the sides which heartbreakingly denied Ipswich a place in the last eight of the competition for the first time in 32 years. Nevertheless, Palmer insists that defeat will not be at the forefront of the piayers’ minds tomorrow.

“No, I don’t think it’s revenge,” he said when asked about motivation. “At this part of the season, we’ve got to pick up results and that’s it. So every game, we’re going into, we are looking to pick up a positive result that we can build on.”

Palmer could have become an instant Ipswich Town legend had he stopped any of the Nottingham Forest spot kicks that night but he was soundly beaten by all five strikes, each one expertly taken.

He admitted to me that a goalkeeper is always second-favorite in that situation. “They should score. I got close to a few. I think it just shows, they were pretty good penalties, I was doing my best.”

Palmer was signed last month from West Bromwich Albion for a reported $2.6 million after Ipswich Town’s first-choice goalkeeper Christian Walton suffered a groin injury in January. Walton himself had replaced summer signing Aro Muric, who had played 17 Premier League games in a row between the sticks.

With Walton now fit and young Ceiran Slicker called up to the senior Scotland side for the first time in November, Palmer is facing competition from three other goalkeepers at the club. “It’s absolutely a really strong department obviously with Christian, with Aro in there, and even Slicks as well. We’ve got a good relationship. The goalie coach is pushing us. It’s very challenging and that’s how you want it to be.”

“I’m a goalkeeper that studies the game, studies the position as it’s constantly evolving so I think there’s room for improvement in every aspect of my game. I like to be that commanding figure at the back, people know I’m there.”

Manager Kieran McKenna said one of the main reasons he brought Palmer into the club was because of his good communication skills which has been reiterated by defenders Dara O’Shea and Jacob Greaves, who joked that he, in fact, talked too much.

“That’s the thing,” he said, “ you can’t really win either way. You come in here and you try to get to know people. . . whether he’s going on about on the pitch or off the pitch – he’s probably on about both.”

“I think that’s my job. That’s my personality, I like to get to know people, I like to have conversations and even more so on the pitch. I probably talked his ear off which is what they all want, and need, a goalkeeper like that. I think that one of my strengths to do that. It keeps me in the game, and keeps me concentrated.”

Palmer’s younger brother Tom is also a goalkeeper, playing for their home-town team Kidderminster Harriers. Palmer revealed “I think we’ve had a very similar pathway into goalkeeping. We both started off as outfielders, wanted to play in goal but never got the opportunity then all of a sudden you’re playing in these massive eleven-a-side goals and everything is going in.”

He told me he remains close to his local team, where he himself made his club debut, even though he never supported them growing up. “I wouldn’t have said I was a fan. I went to games occasionally and I remember turning up to the stadium and going ‘oh my God, this is incredible!’”

“That’s how it is when you’re a small kid going to these stadiums, you think that’s the pinnacle. It was nice to have a local team. I think they were in League Two at the time but I was a fan of Liverpool when I was a bit younger.”

In his six games for Ipswich Town, Palmer has won a match at Coventry City, played at Old Trafford but not yet recorded a shut-out. In fact for a keeper who kept eleven clean sheets in goal for West Bromwich Albion before the turn of the year, he has yet to record one in any of his games in 2025.

He told me “I think we’re getting closer to it. I think you look at the Palace game (last week), we were ten minutes out and I think it would probably have been a deserved clean sheet and a fair result if I’m honest.”

“It’s the Premier League, it’s ruthless. We’ve got to earn it, be deserving of it. Hopefully we can improve on that and get a clean sheet and then have something to build on.”