Ipswich Town: Daryl Murphy 'can score 30 goals' for Ipswich Town

Daryl Murphy has scored four goals in his last four games

Ipswich Town's all-time record scorer Ray Crawford believes striker Daryl Murphy can be the club's first 30-goals-in-a-season man in 34 years.

Murphy, 31, became the first Ipswich player to surpass 20 in a season since 2001 at the weekend.

"If he works as hard as he has done he'll do it," Crawford, who scored 218 times for Town, told BBC Radio Suffolk.

"I think he can reach 30. As long as the boys around him can keeping making opportunities for him."

Murphy's brace in Saturday's 2-1 win at Fulham took him to 21 for the campaign, matching Marcus Stewart's total in the 2000-01 season.

Pablo Counago and Shefki Kuqi totalled 20 in 2002-03 and 2004-05 respectively, but no-one has reached the 30-goal mark since John Wark, who scored 36 in Ipswich's Uefa Cup-winning season of 1980-81.

Ray Crawford (front row, centre) with his 1962 Division One-winning Ipswich Town team-mates

It has been a remarkable campaign for Republic of Ireland international Murphy, whose best tally for a season was previously just 13.

But 78-year-old Crawford, who won two England caps and also played for Wolves, Portsmouth and Colchester, has warned him to expect extra attention from defenders in upcoming matches.

"Other teams are going to be talking about getting tight to him and not letting him get shots in," he said.

"He's a marked man now because he scores goals. It gets harder when you score goals because you get marked tighter."