Blues boss Kieran McKenna says it’s important to stay balanced and focused when facing disappointments such as leaders Plymouth’s last-gasp equaliser at Portman Road last week.

The Pilgrims netted an injury time leveller to claim a 1-1 draw and deny the Blues a morale-boosting victory, a result which followed from two previous draws with Town now having won only one of their last five, the 3-0 Boxing Day defeat of Saturday’s opponents Oxford United at Portman Road.

McKenna says disappointments need to be one side quickly with a consistent approach to performances remaining the most important thing.

“That’s certainly our perspective on it,” he said. “Of course, supporters in the emotion of football, you can’t tell everyone how to feel, but from our point of view we’ve tried to be really consistent right the through in terms of focusing on performances, focusing on the next game.

“We want to win as many games as we can, it’s frustrating when you draw games, especially when you draw them with different circumstances, like we had in the Plymouth game or in the Lincoln game.

“But it’s more important to be consistent in your performances, consistent in how you go about things, keeping looking at ways that you can improve and learn from things that you’ve not done so well, and get ready for the next game.

“There are so many games ahead, there’s such a long part of the season left to play. In 10 games’ time there’ll still be 30 points to play for. There’s a lot of points to play for.

“Our focus is at the moment 100 per cent on us and 100 per cent on the next game and a really good but challenging one against Oxford.”

McKenna says he and his squad endeavour to be emotionally balanced: “We try and be, as I think you need to be over the course of a 46-game season to stay consistent with your performances and consistently chip away at picking up points.

“When you concede such a late goal in injury time in a big game, it’s very disappointing and that doesn’t go away overnight. It takes a couple of days to process it then go through it as a team, and we did that.

“And we looked at what we need to do better and we want to kill the game first and foremost to make it 2-0.

“Then when it comes to those last 10 minutes and we haven’t managed to go and get the second goal, how we can defend better in those situations.

“Of course, it was a blow, but we’re able to take the positives from the game, the positives from the performance, the positives from where we’re at as a team and stay balanced and look forward to the next game which comes round pretty quickly in football.”

Photo: TWTD

Nomore4 added 16:58 - Jan 19 As a season ticket holder I've been a bit deflated lately. Mainly because of so many false hopes through the years. The backing from the owners so far in this window has now changed this deflated feeling. KMcM it's now over to you to get the job done....all tools required have now been delivered and installed.
4

Bazza8564 added 17:02 - Jan 19 Alays a key statement in one of these, this ones is easy "kill teh game and make it 2-0" Lets be honest weve drawn games this season we should have been out of sight in, single goal leads are always going to be tricky heading into added time so we have to be more clinical and build bigger leads. That way these late concessions can return to being consolation goals not damaging ones

4

Lord_Mac added 17:02 - Jan 19 The key thing to remember is that many points being played for will be between the top 6 teams, and they cannot both win. As a first approximation, there are about 15 games of this type. We have to focus on winning the 5 of those games which involve us, and hope that Plymouth and Sheffield Weds drop points in the other 10 of those games. And of course any team can also drop points against the other teams in the division. We have managed that quite well so far, and it's a habit we need to break!

1

Daniel235 added 18:08 - Jan 19 I agree with mckenna there is a lot of points to play for 60 points that is!!!!
0

ArnieM added 18:11 - Jan 19 Stop sitting back to see the game out. Keep attacking .
1

Suffolkboy added 18:18 - Jan 19 Much that's valid on here ; BUT ,and KM is careful how he says whatever , we in fact need to put many more balls in the opposition net ,so that we've a cushion ,for you're never going to be certain of totally defending only a ONE goal advantage ., COYB
1

Blogs 297 bloggers

Ipswich Town Polls