McKenna: The Next Game's Another Big One Monday, 17th Apr 2023 17:27 Town face managerless Port Vale at Portman Road on Tuesday evening aiming to move three points closer to automatic promotion from League One. Saturday’s superb 6-0 thrashing of Charlton moved the Blues, who have five left to play, back into the top two, a point behind leaders Plymouth and one in front of Sheffield Wednesday with the Owls having played a game more than Town, the Pilgrims and fourth-placed Barnsley. While the Blues, who have won their last six at home while scoring 23 times, are hosting Vale, their automatic promotion rivals are also in action, all away from home. Argyle are at Shrewsbury, Wednesday travel to Bristol Rovers and the Tykes make the trip to Lincoln City. Boss Kieran McKenna, whose side are unbeaten in 13 in the league and have won nine of their last 10, says his team have been preparing well for Tuesday’s match. “Good, everyone’s recovering well, still in that process, of course,” he told Follow Ipswich. “We’ve looked back at the game from Saturday a little bit, things we’ve done well, things we can do better, and now it’s all eyes on Port Vale. “We’ve got on the grass today, done a bit of light work and we’ve got tomorrow morning as well, just making sure that we’re ready come Tuesday night.  “It’s a short turnaround when you get the Saturday-Tuesdays but it’s good. It’s a chance to pick up back-to-back points and from back-to-back performances. “It means it’s pretty intense for the staff and we’re analysing the opposition; where we think we can hurt them, where they’re going to give us problems and making sure that we do all our processes well and getting that across to the players. “It’s just about being ready. Saturday was such a good game, such a good day but it’s about the next game now. “The next game’s another big one, they come around quick and we’re doing everything we can to be ready for it.” Vale, who are 18th in the table, only six points off relegation having won only two of their last 18 matches, sacked manager Darrell Clarke this morning with his assistant Andy Crosby taking charge in the interim, with former Portsmouth and Lincoln boss Danny Cowley the early favourite to be handed the role on a permanent basis. Quizzed on whether the change of management will have much of an impact on the visitors’ approach, McKenna said: “You never know, it adds an element of unpredictability to it but we have to be ready for all bases. “Teams often change against us anyway and come with different game plans and we’ve had good experience across the season of dealing with different things. “We have to be ready for what comes, know what their main threats are at an individual level, know what their main threats are on a tactical level. That will cross-over irrespective of what the game plan is. “And other than that, focus on ourselves. We’re on a good run, we’re playing well, are performing well, the squad is all fresh and hungry and we just need to go out and deliver another performance.” The Blues will again be roared on by another near sell-out home crowd with season ticket holders entitled to purchase up to two additional tickets at discounted prices. “That’s brilliant for a Tuesday night game, that would be fantastic,” McKenna enthused. “We can’t thank the supporters enough for the support we’ve had. There was a wonderful atmosphere right through the say on Saturday. “The time we want to enjoy it as at the end of the games. We have to keep our focus, we know every game in this league is difficult. We know Port Vale will be the same, we know that they’re still fighting for points as well and they’ll be coming here to make it really difficult for us. “But we know that we’ve got the supporters behind us and we need to go out there with big energy to use that support at our back, have a big focus on our jobs and if we do that and give ourselves a chance to get the result, then we know that we can enjoy it with the supporters and get ready for the next game.” McKenna could well stick with the same team that started the convincing victory over Charlton on Saturday with Christian Walton in goal. Harry Clarke will be on the right of the defence alongside Luke Woolfenden and Cameron Burgess with Leif Davis at left-back and Wes Burns wide on the right. Skipper Samy Morsy will be in central midfield with Massimo Luongo with 25-goal top scorer Conor Chaplin and Nathan Broadhead the number 10s behind central striker George Hirst. Vale interim-manager Crosby admits it’s been a tough few days for last season’s League Two play-off winners but now they have to concentrate on accumulating the points to ensure survival. “It was important that I relayed messages to the players about what the future looks like and what we can control, that has been my message,” he told his club’s official website. “We’ve had a difficult period of time but we’ve now got a four-game mini-season, 21 days to really focus on what the task is, and the task is to ensure that we’re playing League One football next season.” Crosby knows that Portman Road isn’t the easiest place to be visiting at the present time, however, recalls that Vale pulled off victories against some of top teams in the division earlier in the campaign. “We’ve played difficult games throughout the season. We’ve gone to some really difficult places before and we’ve won. We’ve gone to Plymouth [2-0], we’ve gone to Derby [2-1] and been really competitive and got results and picked up points. “That is the main thing, that we go there and we’re a really competitive team, that we focus on being the best version of ourselves. “We know the qualities that Ipswich have got, they’re obviously a very good team, but so are we.” Crosby wants everyone at Vale Park unified in the season’s final weeks: “It’s going to be a collective effort, it’s not just going to be about one part of the football club, it’s the whole football club, players, staff, supporters and achieving the task ahead.” The visitors will be without Funso Ojo, Dennis Politic and Sammy Robinson due to suspensions after four red cards in their last three games, two on Saturday. However, club captain Tom Conlon’s dismissal at Sincil Bank has been overturned on appeal and the midfielder will be available to face the Blues. Vale are without a win in seven matches, four defeats and three draws. Having made a positive start to their first season back in League One, the Potteries-based side have won only two in their last 18. Away from home, they have won five, drawn five and lost 11. Their last win on their travels was at Forest Green Rovers on New Year’s Day. Historically, Town and Port Vale have met on 36 previous occasions with Town winning 23 (22 in the league), Vale seven (six) and with six (six) ending in draws. The Blues have won the last seven matches between the clubs and are unbeaten in the last nine. At Vale Park in October, Freddie Ladapo scored twice and Cameron Humphreys a brilliant strike on his full league debut as Town won 3-2, their sixth away win of the season. Ladapo gave the Blues the lead on 34, then Humphreys lashed in a second four minutes later, however, Gavin Massey and Nathan Smith levelled for Vale either side of half-time but four minutes later on 51 Ladapo won it from a Humphreys cross. The teams last met at Portman Road in April 2000 with the Blues on the way to the play-offs and then the Premier League and Vale into the third tier. Goals from Matt Holland, James Scowcroft and David Johnson saw Town to a 3-0 win. Three months earlier at Vale Park, Holland and Scowcroft were again on target as the Blues won 2-1, Tony Naylor netting for the home side in between their strikes. Town’s last defeat to the Potteries club was back in March 1996 in a First Division (now Championship) game at Vale Park which ended 2-1 to the home side. Two months earlier, Vale had beaten Town 4-2 at Portman Road in the Anglo-Italian Cup semi-final, their most recent win in Suffolk. Town skipper Morsy started his senior career with Vale having joined them in 2008 after being released by hometown club Wolves. He went on to make 49 starts and 29 sub appearances, scoring four times before moving on to Chesterfield in June 2013. Vale striker Ellis Harrison was with Town for the 2018/19 season, having been signing from Bristol Rovers by Paul Hurst, making nine starts and eight sub appearances and scoring once in an injury-hit campaign before being sold to Portsmouth the following summer. The Welshman joined Vale in August last year after a half-season stint with Fleetwood. Tuesday’s referee is Robert Lewis from Shrewsbury, who has shown 115 yellow cards and two red in 30 games so far this season. Lewis’s last Town game was the 3-0 home victory over Cambridge United in October in which the only yellow card was shown to Tyreece John-Jules. Before that, he refereed the 2-1 defeat at Plymouth in October 2021 in which he booked Morsy, Chaplin, George Edmundson, Toto Nsiala and one Pilgrim. Prior to that, he was in charge of the 0-0 draw at Rochdale in April 2021 in which he yellow-carded only Blues loanee Josh Harrop, the last game prior to the Gamechanger 20 takeover. He was also the man in the middle for the 2-0 home victory over Accrington Stanley in October earlier that season in which he booked Luke Chambers and Cameron Burgess, who was then with the Lancastrians. Before that he took charge of the 1-1 draw at Wycombe Wanderers on New Year’s Day 2020 when he cautioned only Woolfenden and James Wilson. Squad from: Walton, Hladky, Clarke, Donacien, Woolfenden, Keogh, Burgess, Burns, Jackson, Vincent-Young, Davis, Leigh, Morsy, Luongo, Ball, Humphreys, Camara, Chaplin, Broadhead, Harness, Edwards, Aluko, Ladapo, Hirst.
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