McKenna: Good Performance Against a Difficult Team Saturday, 18th Mar 2023 18:34 Town boss Kieran McKenna felt his side put in a good performance against a difficult team as they beat Shrewsbury 2-0 at Portman Road. George Hirst netted in the first half and Massimo Luongo in the second to see the Blues to a sixth win on the trot for the first time since 1999 and their first time in the league since 1992. “Good performance against a difficult team, as we thought it would be,” McKenna said. “But we did lots of good things. “Scored a really good goal to open the game up, had other chances in the first half but it was never going to be easy against a Shrewsbury team who defend their goal really well and deep with lots of bodies. “We had lots of pressure around their goal and lots of chances without getting big clear-cut chances because you’re not going to get too many of them against Shrewsbury. “We created right through the game really, looked a threat. Scored a good second goal through Massimo as well and I thought we defended in general well throughout the game. “Of course, you’re never comfortable at 1-0 or 2-0 against a team like Shrewsbury because they put the ball in the box so quickly. “Every long throw and every set piece is an opportunity to load the box, so you have to stand up to that and I thought in general we did that really well.” Luongo netted his first goal since returning to the club and the Australian international was given a standing ovation as he left the field late on. “He’s doing really well,” McKenna continued. “I’m just delighted for him really because he was at a stage in his career where there was uncertainty about the next step was going to be and he hadn’t played any football this year. “You can see he’s just loving it, he’s a competitor, he loves being out there. He’s intelligent, he’s adapted to our team, to a new position for him in terms of the latter stages of his career playing a bit higher up and making the box and trying to score and create goals and he’s showing that he’s a really good all-round footballer, who can help us.” What does he put Town’s six-game winning run down to? “I’ve said before, the performances have generally been consistent. If you look at the games across the season, there haven’t been many games we’ve been out on the wrong side of chances against us compared to what we’ve created in games. “We’ve had performance victories throughout the course of the season. Some margins are going our way. “We’ve added well in January and after a few weeks of bedding in, you can see the qualities those players are bringing to us. “The understanding of our players has improved across the course of the season, so we are improving still. “Confidence is high and, as always, it’s a multitude of things. I think in general, we’ve been consistent, we’ve performed well and if you do that, you give yourself a chance to get a run of wins. “It didn’t happen early in the season too often, I think we won four in a row early in the season maybe, but I think we’re getting our rewards now for the performances.” The position in the battle for second hasn’t changed following today’s games and McKenna expects the campaign to go right to the wire. “It’s going to be a really exciting end to the season for everyone,” he said. “It’s lovely to be up there. There are good teams up there, everyone’s picking up results and we’ve got nine games left. “A chance now next week that we have to use well to refresh and refocus and then go into the last nine games, take each one as we can and try and win every game, that’s all we can do.” A game Town might have found more of a struggle earlier in the season, the Blues having been held to draws by the likes of Fleetwood and Cheltenham at home earlier in the campaign. “Possibly,” he reflected. “We won some games against that type of strategy as well. Who knows? As I’ve said before, every game is a challenge in this league, certainly for us. “You get different types of games. Today was against a team who defend their goal really well and who are really physical, have a lot of big players and have good set play delivery and put it in your box. “I think you gain from the experiences. We’re 37 games in now, the players generally understand the type of games we’re going to have, the type of opposition strategies we’re going to have and what we have to do in those types of game. “I think that’s part of it as well, that the players’ understanding now is better of how teams will set-up against us and what we need to do to counteract that, and I think that should improve over the course of a season and it has improved for us.” McKenna had praise for opening goalscorer Hirst, who has now netted two goals in his last two matches. “I thought his all-round performance was excellent, to be fair,” he said. “It’s a credit to him and a credit to the staff who have been working really hard with him as well. “If you look at his improvement in his link plays, the balls into feet, his combination plays, understanding of how to coordinate with his teammates from the last two games to his first couple of games, I think there’s a vast, vast difference. “There’s been a lot of hard work gone into that from George himself but also the coaching staff and everyone, and he’s integrating more and more into our system and he’s showing why we think so highly of him as a young forward.” The Blues manager says his backline take great pride in the club record run of seven clean sheets with Town last having conceded 686 minutes ago in the Sheffield Wednesday match. “They’re taking real pride in it,” he said. “We weren’t happy with it in the first half of the season, to be honest. “I think we should have a really good clean sheet record. We keep the ball better than anyone in the league, we keep it away from our goal and teams don’t have many shots against us. “It was a big frustration in the group that we were conceding, some of that was luck, some of it was things that we weren’t doing well enough that we’ve worked on and we’re doing better on some of those details now and the players are taking a real pride in it and Christian [Walton]’s produced some good saves when needed as well. “We have to try and continue being really solid between now and the end of the season because we’ve shown that we’ve got goals in us, so clean sheets give us a great chance to win games.” Regarding Walton requiring treatment to a blow to the head in the second half, McKenna added: “He had to show bravery and we had to defend a lot of balls into our box. I thought some of the refereeing decisions were really, really strange. “It kept the game more tense than it needed to be and that was one where I thought there was a clear foul on Christian that wasn’t given and the foul was only given after the ball bounced down and was given for the second phase of it when I thought he got cleaned out in the first instance. “But it is what it is. Good bravery from him, we defended a lot of set plays well against a team who are the best team in the league at set plays, so the players can take real pride from that, so credit to them and credit to the coaching staff who have been working really hard with them.” Skipper Sam Morsy avoided a 10th league yellow card which would have led to a ban for the eighth match running with suspensions coming after 15 bookings from now on. “That’s a big plus for us, there’s no doubt about it, losing him for two games would have been a big negative,” McKenna continued. “It’s good that he’s cleared that hurdle, he’s been playing with terrific discipline, authority, leadership, drive, everything that you’d want. “Of course, you don’t want him to get to nine yellows in the first place, but he does play right on the edge, so he’s always going to pick up some yellows, but I think he’s managed the situation very well and kept his performance levels really, really high.” Town now don’t have a game for a fortnight and McKenna says the players will be given some time off during that period. “It’s a balance. We can’t switch off too much mentally or physically because we’re in the thick end of the season,” he said. “Of course, there’ll be a few days off but also we need to work, we need to stay sharp, we need to work to improve things. We’ll look to get some minutes into and some work into the legs of those who haven’t played so much. “Those who have played a bit more can benefit from the recovery a little bit more. But we have to use it to our benefit, we didn’t ask for there to be an international break, no problem if there hadn’t have been one to continue next week, but the situation is what it is. “And we have to make the most of that situation in terms of getting the balance of recovery but also good work on the training ground to make sure we’re ready for the last nine games, obviously starting with the big one against Derby.”
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