“Ridiculous,” was Town boss Kieran McKenna’s assessment of the penalty from which 10-man Lincoln City took the lead in this afternoon’s 1-1 draw at Sincil Bank.
Jack Diamond’s spot-kick just after the hour gave the Imps the lead against the run of play, Adam Jackson having been red-carded towards the end of the first half, with Cameron Humphreys levelling for the Blues nine minutes from time.
McKenna admitted it was a frustrating way to start 2023: "I thought the penalty against us was a ridiculous decision really, that was completely out of context with everything I’ve seen in my year in League One.
"But the other hand, not out of context with what I’ve seen from what we’ve been given in the last 12 months.
"I’ve said it in the dressing room, it’s going to be a massive, massive challenge but a great achievement to get this team out of League One and get this club out of League One because there are whole host of challenges ahead of us and today that decision was symbolic of one of the big challenges.
"But there are a whole host of them, and that’s one of the reasons why it’s very difficult being Ipswich Town in League One.
"But that’s the great challenge for us in the second half of the season. We have to embrace that, we have to improve and we have to keep owning the bits that we can do better to overcome the challenges that we face.”
McKenna, who has expressed his annoyance at the lack of penalties awarded to the Blues at Portman Road this season, says it’s not about bias against the Blues: "I’m still trying to figure it out. I don’t think it’s that, it’s not a bias against Ipswich Town per se.
"I think the penalty record is really, really bizarre. I think we’ve had penalty instances 10 times worse than that several times over at Portman Road and they’ve not been given.
"We’ve had one penalty at home all season and two against us, which even from a statistical point of view from the number of appeals, balls in the box, challenges that we have, for me I find really, really difficult to understand.
"And then that to be given because the other team were with 10 men, to give a penalty for marking that happens in every game, it happened in both boxes today on every single corner, I thought was really strange.
"I don’t fully understand the reasoning behind it but it’s something for me that is real from the evidence I’ve seen so far this season and something we need to push back against.”
He says referee Declan Bourne explained why he’d given the penalty, Lincoln centre-half Paudie O’Connor having ended up on the turf as the corner had come across.
"The referee said for marking inappropriately, but we’ve had - and I can’t remember the incidents now off the top of my head - but among the other penalty appeals, appeals for penalties where people have been taken down by the neck when they’re just about to make contact in the face of the goal.
"Greg Leigh had one in the first half where he was in the face of the goal and he was about to head it in and he got pulled back by the neck, so to give one for inappropriate marking when the ball wasn’t even in that area, I thought was so out of the context of the game.
"Referees can make mistakes, like we all can, but when one comes like that that’s so out of context that, the referee said he’s not given one of those decisions all season, so I can’t believe that that’s the most aggressive incident that he’s seen in the box all season.
"That’s a challenge for us and, of course, that’s a frustration and we hope that it can be evened up at some point, but from then I think we need to turn our frustration to ourselves and the things that we need to improve.”
McKenna felt his team had chances and had got on top prior to Adam Jackson’s dismissal.
"Yes, there were,” he reflected. "I thought we were really in a good moment in the game before the red card. It was a steady game, a difficult build-up for ourselves.
"The first 15 or 20 minutes was pretty even but then I thought we were really growing into the game and had big chances to go 1-0 up and I thought we were in great ascendancy and at that stage of the game Lincoln were still trying to play and have a football match against us and leaving some space.
"When the red card comes, you’re able to control the ball easier but they stopped coming out of their box and stopped giving us any space whatsoever and they do that very well. It suits the qualities that they have and they’ve done it twice this week, against Bolton and against ourselves.”
Regarding sub Humphreys’ headed equaliser, he added: "Lovely goal, full credit to him. I’ve said it before, he’s such a good kid, knows his role and understands is role in different positions, comes on in different positions and does just what we want from one of our forward players. Made a good run into the box and was there to finish.”
Going into the match, McKenna said that the squad was suffering with illness and Janoi Donacien came off at half-time as he was unwell.
"Illness,” the Blues boss confirmed. "I’m not going to go into it too much but it’s been a really difficult 48 hours. I’ve never experienced a dressing room with as much sickness or anything like it as we’ve had this week.
"If we were picking fit players, we’d probably have had three players on the pitch. Credit to all the lads for putting themselves out there, Janoi being one of them, but he was unable at half-time to continue and thankfully we had Kane [Vincent-Young] to come on.”
Leif Davis and George Edmundson were too ill to travel, McKenna having revealed at his press conference on Saturday that two players had been sent home and were on antibiotics.
"Leif and George were the two who weren’t able to travel among all the boys sick,” he said. "They’ve both stayed at base and we’ll see how they are over the next couple of days.”
The draw saw the Blues drop to third behind Sheffield Wednesday, who hammered Cambridge United 5-0 at Hillsborough, however, McKenna says there will be plenty of twists and turns before the end of the campaign.
"There’s such a long way ahead,” he continued. "We have managed to keep pretty level whenever we were top of the league and there’s whatever number of points still to play for and we have to play all the teams in and around us.
"It’s an exciting second half of the season. We’re in a good position, we’re performing well, there’s a lot to be pleased about. We do feel like we should have more points than we have, that’s the reality.
"We need to convert performances into points more consistently, we need to turn performances into goals and defensive performances into clean sheets.
"But on the other hand, there have been lots of things that haven’t gone our way and I’m sure there will be an evening up of that in some respects in the second half of the season.
"There’s lots to look forward to, we’ve got the FA Cup now next Saturday [at home to Rotherham], which we look forward to and then a really big game [against leaders Plymouth at Portman Road] the weekend after that.”
Asked how performances can be turned into goals and points, McKenna said: "There’s a lot of different reasons. For me today, it should be a clean sheet, the opposition I think had a chance in the first half, which was offside and wasn’t given and they get given a penalty, so it should be a clean sheet.
"Clean sheets are one way, don’t concede goals, keep clean sheets, that gives you a better chance to win games.
"We feel like we should be scoring more for the chances that we’re creating, so we need to be more clinical.
"We need to keep working with the players individually, we need to recruit well in the window to be more clinical with the chances we get and we need to keep working on our play as a team to create more chances.
"But the reality is that we are creating many more chances than any team in the league. We’re given much fewer chances than any team in the league, so the margins are really thin and we can sit here and poke and look at the faults but probably we’re doing that because we’ve lost points in really fine margins in games that don’t have too much to do with our play as a team.
"It’s important to keep looking at where we need to improve but also to recognise that we’re very, very fine margins from having a lot more points on the board than we have and we need to keep improving the little aspects that can help us in those really tight situations.”
Quizzed on whether there might be new arrivals prior to the Millers’ visit, McKenna said: "I need to catch up tomorrow with [CEO] Mark [Ashton] and the club. I know they’re working really hard. It’s not impossible but I can’t say for sure either way.
"Of course, the focus has been on the three games this week for myself and the coaching staff and we’ll have a good catch-up after the game and find out where we are with the players that we’re in for.”
Reflecting on a festive period in which the Blues have taken only five points from nine while staying unbeaten, he added: "Performance-wise and spirit, I’m pleased with the group.
"Again, it’s been a really difficult week in the camp, we’ve had a difficult fixture list with Oxford and two tough away games and it’s been difficult getting a healthy team on the pitch.
"Pleased with the spirit that we’ve shown and plenty of aspects of the performances but we wanted more than five points. Five points across the week feels like a low-ish return and we need to review the reasons why and keep improving on that aspect.”
Despite the frustrating draws and dropping out of the top two, McKenna says there’s no panic.
"Absolutely,” he insisted. "It’s going to be a really big challenge to get out of this league. Every game’s a cup final for the other team, we’re getting paid huge amount of respect by the opponents and we’re still managing to put in good performances and not get beaten very often and win a good number of games but, of course, we’ve had more draws lately than we would want.
"In terms of our general play, our principles, we’re in a good place. We’re creating plenty and not giving away much.
"For sure, we’re going to look to add to the squad and improve the squad in the second half of the season, which will have a part to play, but, of course, the other teams will as well.
"So it’s about moving in the right direction. We’re in a good position, I consider this as almost halfway through the season. I know we’ve passed the halfway point but with the Oxford game being halfway and having two games in such quick succession, there wasn’t really time to take stock.
"Now we have 11 days or so with no [league] game, we’ll hopefully have some new players in the door, which will give us a boost and we’ll look at things and give ourselves the best chance of a good second half of the year.”