Town boss Kieran McKenna admits training during Storm Eunice was a challenge and says the effects of the wind comes into his thoughts when preparing for matches in League One in general, not just tomorrow’s visit by Burton Albion.

Quizzed on this morning’s training session, McKenna said: “It was a big challenge. We had to do the large majority of our work inside. We’re lucky here to have a good inside area, so we managed to do most of our preparation in the classroom and inside on an artificial pitch.

“We went outside for a very short bit of the session just to get the players moving and some fresh air.

“It was a challenge to say the least but thankfully everyone came through it safe and well and they’re ready for the game on Saturday.”

Does the potential for strong winds come into his preparations for a game? “It can a little bit. That’s something that I’m still adapting to because at Premier League grounds it was never really too much of an issue.

“I can’t think of many games over the years that I’ve been involved in that level that were really affected by the wind.

“Obviously, with the bowl shape of most of the stadiums and the fact that they are a little bit higher and a little bit more protected, it never really felt like it was a big issue or anything that affected the game too much in games that I’ve been involved with.

“I think at this level, the conditions do have more of an impact, the pitch quality can vary considerably from game-to-game and certain grounds are more exposed to the wind than others.

“So that’s something that I’ve learned in the first couple of months, something that we’re looking into more, getting really detailed reports as early as we can in the week in terms of the weather conditions and the pitch conditions and things like that.

“I think whatever conditions we play in, we’ll want to have certain principles that we stick to, but we also need to be adaptable enough that we are able to play in the conditions better than the opposition are.”

Photo: Matchday Images

Matterhorn added 16:39 - Feb 18 Crikey, he even looks at the weather forecast, is there anything he doesn't analyse! Shouldn't be no more booting the ball upfield into a gale force headwind then
4

Edmundo added 18:07 - Feb 18 Should be a darn sight more calm tomorrow. Hopefully we'll have a new pitch next season, so our game will be playable, at home anyhow.
0

gosblue added 11:40 - Feb 19 From my experience, when there is a strong wind, you want to be playing into the wind second half. It's harder to control the length of passes downwind and it's much harder tracking back against against a strong wind. So that can be very tiring at the end of a game on a heavy pitch. COYB
0

Blogs 298 bloggers

Ipswich Town Polls