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McKenna: Brentford Game Another in Which We Were Competitive - Ipswich Town News

Blues manager Kieran McKenna felt last week’s 1-0 defeat at home to Brentford was typical of many of Town’s matches this season.

As so often, there wasn’t an awful lot between the teams and the Blues might well have grabbed a point having had a number of chances in the latter stages.

Asked whether the defeat to the Bees was almost a snapshot of the campaign as a whole, McKenna said: "There have been different types of games, for sure. We know we've been competitive, I've not got the numbers to hand, but in the majority of the games we've been competitive and we've been very often within one goal.

"And it's certainly in that category. And we could have got something from the game at the end. 
 
"I think we're frustrated not to [win]. We were desperate to get the result. We have another chance to do it at home next weekend against West Ham.

"Competing against Brentford, they're eighth in the league and they're well established in the division, they’ve been working with their manager and with a squad for a long period of time, we've done some things well in the game to compete with them until the last minute, but ultimately it wasn't enough to get a result. So we have to keep working to improve.”

Three of Town’s wins and 15 of their 22 points, 68 per cent, which would be an all-time Premier League record if that’s the case at the end of the season, have come on their travels and McKenna was asked why he feels the home record has been so disappointing.

"I don't think it's one thing,” he reflected. "It is a frustration that we'll carry into the summer and we hope we'll lessen that frustration by getting a good result against West Ham [on the final day]. 
 
"I've spoken on it before. It's never one thing or else it would be easy to solve. I think if you wanted to generalise it, the first half of the season our home performances were generally very good or good on most occasions. 
 
"And we were small margins and decisions and moments away from having more home wins and certainly our home form in terms of performances was better than our away form. So sometimes there can be a random circumstance to football.
 
"We've had some of our home performances in the second half of the season that have not been as good. 
 
"Of course, we've had the likes of Man City at home, Arsenal at home, which are going to be very difficult games anyway. But we've had a couple of frustrating ones that we could have done a little bit better in. 
 
"And then again, some tight ones like the Brentford game, that we were in and around for points and certainly feel like in the away games the chances have tended to go in more and we've tended to get the first goal more, and we haven't managed to do that at home. 
 
"I think it's a frustration that we carry from the season. I don't think it's one thing. I don't even think it's been consistent over the course of the season the reasons why we haven't won as many games at home as away.

"But we've got a chance to try and do better on that next weekend against West Ham. So that's what we try and do. This week's just all been about Leicester.”

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