Blues manager Kieran McKenna believes the fine margins haven’t always gone Town’s way in home games this season but feels performances at Portman Road have generally been good.

The Blues, who host sixth-placed Peterborough on Saturday, have played 10 League One matches at home and 10 away during 2022/23 and have picked up 19 points at Portman Road to 23 away from Suffolk and have dropped points in three of the last four home matches.

Last Friday’s 1-1 draw with Fleetwood was particularly frustrating with the visitors netting their leveller deep, deep in injury time and with a number of key decisions having gone against the Blues.

“When you concede a 97th minute, double deflection equaliser, it changes the narrative of the game,” McKenna reflected.

“We were disappointed to drop the points, but it is fine margins at the moment. The group is giving everything that they have got and, in general, the performances have been very high.

“I thought we had the much better of the game for 65-70 minutes, looking back on it last week, but of course the last 25 minutes, plus extra time, they managed to keep the ball and switch the play without threatening us too much.

“But in general, I think the performances have been good and consistent and we can have no complaints of the players. The margins haven’t always gone our way.

“I think if you go back to the game last week, for me there is an incredibly stonewall penalty in the 97th minute [when Kayden Jackson was fouled] and we should have a kick from 12 yards to win the game.

“It looked an absolute penalty at the time, on top of the penalty that should have been in the first half [when Cameron Burgess was hauled to the ground as a corner came over]. It was a nailed-on penalty that everyone in the stadium saw, but the referee hasn’t given from 10 yards away.

“And in the build-up to the equalising goal, there is an offside where we have defended a wide free-kick in the 95th minute and squeezed the box really well and the player is two yards offside on the second phase. These margins aren’t going our way at the moment.

“I think across the home games, we have had one penalty and conceded two, which considering the number of balls we have in the opposition box and the amount of threat we have in the opposition box in our home games, and our territory, it is a really strange statistic and one I don’t think can be matched in the second half of the season.

“In general, the home performances have been good. The results have been good, but could be better and we would like to have a few more points across those home games.

“But, as I say, the margins haven’t quite gone our way and I am sure that will, and has to, turn at some point and we can build on the good stuff that we have done already.”

Given the defensive approach taken by most sides visiting Portman Road, does McKenna feel that it’s less of a surprise that the Blues have picked up more points away where teams might look to be a little more positive?

“No, we want our home form to be good,” he said. “Our away form’s been very, very, very good, so I think that’s part of that. Our home form hasn’t been too bad across the season either.

“Again, the margins, I could go through every game, every decision and certainly we feel that we’ve been on the wrong end of those margins, both at times fortune and at times decisions in our home games.

“You can have spells like that over the course of the season, but in general the performances at home have been good. We’ve created lots of chances, we haven’t given many chances away and we’ll look to continue to do that and if we do that, I know that we’ll get good results in the second half of the season at home and away.”

Photo: TWTD

Suffolkboy added 16:44 - Dec 8 Such a well balanced un- emotional analytical digest which is difficult to challenge ! I just hope there's been some way that videos of incidents and either poor or total lack of decision making has been illustrated to the Referees organising bodies . This ought to happen ,not for continuing criticism ,or exercise of blame BUT because mistakes are to learn from ,to act as a point of positive learning ,and it's been very evident that good quality of officiating is pretty thinly spread at the lower levels in particular ! COYB

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essexccc added 19:05 - Dec 8 I do hope Kieran is right about luck/ref decisions balancing out. Older fans, like me, will recall ref Roy Capey awarding. Chelsea a goal in the early 70s, that hit the side netting only. And of course there was Clive Thomas preventing us getting to the Cup Final in 1975 disgracefully wrongly disallowing two Ipswich goals. But I'm not bitter😡😡
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Flamencaman added 12:54 - Dec 9 I'm astounded at some of the decisions given by refs at our ground, and away from home until I see different how far offside was the Sheffield player on my television he looked way off maybe it's my old age, the penalty in the first 2 minutes when KVY was poleaxedthink we are being penalised because Evans tenure
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