Town boss Kieran McKenna believes the Blues have made some great strides over the time he has been in charge but is more interested in performances and how his team works than the League One table, which his side currently tops, at this point in the season.

The Blues remain unbeaten having won five and drawn two in their league campaign with Bristol Rovers visiting Portman Road tomorrow. They have won their first four away games at the start of a season for the first time in their history.

“I didn’t have any expectations around league position after seven games,” McKenna said when asked if he had anticipated being in this position at this stage in the campaign. “It’s not of interest to me.

“Our expectations around how we perform is a big interest, how we work is a big interest.

“I think our performances have been good on the whole, but still with a lot of room to improve. That’s where my focus and my expectations lie.

“We expected to start well, in terms of performances, and we expected to be a hard-working team who were well organised and had a plan, on and off the ball, and I think we are that.

“Now we need to keep on improving. We need to keep improving our work on the ball, keep improving our set plays, keep on top of our good defensive record, keep improving defensively.

“Our performances are around a level that I would be happy with but there is big scope for improvement and that’s what the next couple of months are about. Time for looking at league tables is a long way down the road for now.”

Reflecting on the work which goes on on a daily basis, he added: “The culture of winning is hopefully a by-product of the work we do. We don’t talk every day about winning, we talk every day about improvement and learning. We talk about maximum effort, we talk about everything on the training pitch counting to the bigger goal and we really focus on that.

“We focus on doing the right things day-to-day and improving, individually, as a team and as staff.

“Having an open environment where players can communicate, where they can question things, input into their own development - as individuals and in the team - we focus on doing all those things right.

“We feel if we do those things well and we work really hard at it Monday to Friday, the chances of winning a game on a Saturday are much, much higher. And the winning becomes a by-product of everything we do. That’s our approach to it.

“We have made some great strides in the last eight months, internally as a club. We get really good feedback from people who come into the club and watch us train having not been at the club for a while.

“I think the players know that themselves. They feel the standard every day, they feel the competition every day and that gives you a chance.

“That is what we will keep focusing on and keep working hard towards, respecting every opponent, obviously Bristol Rovers being the next in line and be humble and work hard on the pitch, doing everything we can to get three points at a time.”

Photo: Pagepix

therein61 added 17:39 - Sep 12 How refreshing to have a manager who tells the fans as things are and not sugar coating and talking boll1cks
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StaffsBlue58 added 17:42 - Sep 12 Hi all, new to the site but a long term avid reader. Just read comments in todays Manchester Evening News that suggests Brighton weighing up a move for Mc Kenna. Let's hope just paper talk
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Ipswichbusiness added 19:05 - Sep 12 StaffsBlue58: I'm not surprised to hear that Brighton are interested in KMc, let's just hope that he stays!
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Sharkey added 20:39 - Sep 12 His strides are quite dapper, I must say. Can he do jackets?
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ArnieM added 21:37 - Sep 12 Brighton can make any move they like . They'll get a short answer from Ipswich Town FC. And it'll end in “ off”
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OliveR16 added 22:37 - Sep 12 Brighton's problem is that they may be placed way higher than Ipswich but they are not naturally a stronger club. The goal of the project at Ipswich is to be where Brighton are, and McKenna has time on his side as the youngest manager in the EFL/PL. He can afford to wait, prove himself by getting Town towards higher things and probably get a much bigger club one day. If ManU came knocking we would lose him.

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Len_Brennan added 04:36 - Sep 13 I think OliveR16 makes a good point, in that Brighton are where Ipswich are aiming to be, and indeed where Brighton (Potter) aimed to be. That's why Potter took the Chelsea job; for however good a manager he is, he could not challenge Manchester City for the title while at Brighton. They are currently 4th, with City, Arsenal & Spurs ahead, and Chelsea, Liverpool & Man Utd just behind; how was he going to improve on that? Realistically, at best, they will drop a few positions & hope to finish in a European spot, and that would have been the case had Potter stayed there For a young ambitious/aspiring manager like McKenna, going in there now can only really offer better money & a chance to coach in the Premier League right away; it won't give him the opportunity to create his own legacy of achievement by bringing a club up the divisions. I know managers like Alan Curbishly's great achievement was keeping a club like Charlton consistently around 7th in the Premier League, but he had also gotten them up first; I think McKenna will want that challenge first, he's young so can have 30 years of the other.

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IpswichT62OldBoy added 09:05 - Sep 13 He is going nowhere, he has a plan. Town are a bigger club than: Brighton Fulham, Brentford Southampton, Bournemouth Wolves, Palace, On a par with Villa, Forest, Newcastle, West Ham, Everton, not sure about Leicester. Feel free to discuss.
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Crinkle59 added 09:37 - Sep 13 Don't want to be devil's advocate but as as an ITFCsupporter since 1939, he truth is we have been a3rd div. team a larger % of our time than most clubs mentioned , this hopeully will change under McK .COYB
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Steve_ITFC_Sweden added 10:07 - Sep 13 While I'm usually cynical about loyalty in football, I don't think we need to worry about Brighton at the moment. They seem to have a number of targets, including foreign ones, and I'm sure they've been preparing for this eventuality for some time; and even if McK was one of their targets (which I doubt he is) then I am pretty confident he would remain true to his current project. Graham Potter is a great coach, by the way. He took a very insignificant Swedish club, Östersund, to the last 32 of the Europa league before moving to the UK. An English equivalent would be something like taking Oxford or even Morecambe to the same dizzy heights. Such achievements don't usually last long, however.

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BlueNomad added 10:48 - Sep 13 This is something the school teachers on here could use with their students. Absolutely brilliant. This guy will go right to the very top.
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therein61 added 17:41 - Sep 13 I really feel (re the rumours about Brighton) that we have a guy here who is happy and will want to see his project through when he succeeds i am sure he could be the 3rd manager we send off to F.A Headquarters!!
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