| Southampton 0 v 1 Ipswich Town SkyBet Championship Tuesday, 19th September 2023 Kick-off 19:45 |  |
McKenna: It's a Massive Challenge Monday, 18th Sep 2023 13:48 Third-placed Town face Southampton at St Mary’s on Tuesday aiming to maintain their impressive start to the season and a 100 per cent away record. On Saturday, the Blues added a 1-0 win at Sheffield Wednesday to a victory at QPR by the same scoreline and the opening weekend 2-1 success at Sunderland to take their unbeaten away league run to a new club record 12. Town last lost away in the fog at Oxford in January. The Saints, one of the three relegated former Premier League clubs, go into the game ninth, having claimed 10 points from their first four games in which they were unbeaten, before falling to heavy defeats in their last two, 5-0 away at Sunderland before the international break and 4-1 to fellow demoted side Leicester at home on Friday. The number of goals they are shipping looks their main concern with a 4-4 draw with Norwich at St Mary’s last month a third league game in which they have conceded four or more. The 16 they have allowed the opposition in their six games is more than anyone else in the division by three and they are averaging three a game in their three home fixtures so far. Despite the Saints’ two defeats in their last two, manager Kieran McKenna, speaking after Saturday’s match at Hillsborough, his 50th win with the Blues in only his 87th match, isn’t taking Russell Martin’s side lightly. “For us it’s a massive challenge,” he said. “I know they’ve lost their last two games but you only have to look at the quality of their starting XI, the quality of the substitutes that came on on Friday night to know that it’s going to be a big, big challenge for us. “Going there away from home having been away to Sheffield on Saturday, it’s a massive challenge.  “We’ll look at the games, we’ll look at areas where we think we can hurt them but we will also be really respectful and know that they’ve got top, top players for this level and really good players for the level above. “We’re going to have to go there with really good organisation, really good humility, try and be brave as well and do everything we can to get a performance.” Many of the Town squad watched the Hampshire side’s loss to the Foxes, which was shown live on Sky on Friday evening. “We didn’t make anything official,” McKenna added. “I don’t ever want to over-focus on it because the full respect needed to go towards Sheffield Wednesday and the full focus needed to go to Sheffield Wednesday. “But it was on in the hotel and nearly the whole squad sat down together and watched the first half. “But there was nothing enforced, they just wanted to watch it and it was a really high level game between two absolutely fantastic squads for this level. “We watched the game casually but certainly on the bus home and on Sunday and Monday we’ll really start to study and prepare the team as well as we can.” McKenna knows that the Saints will be a very different test from the Owls: “Very much so and that’s something for us to enjoy this season. “That’s something we spoke about, that the variation of games is a lot greater than it was in League One, so we have challenges like Sheffield Wednesday, which was maybe more typical of what we faced last year, and we’re playing against a really possession-orientated team on Tuesday night. That’s a great challenge for us and it’s exciting to take it on.” While McKenna views Southampton as a significant challenge, Town’s form in the opening weeks of the campaign will mean the Saints, who were playing two divisions above the Blues last season, can’t understimate the Blues. “I think we’re performing pretty well, so I think whoever is going to play against us at the moment are going to see some good things in our game,” McKenna reflected. “I’m sure they’ll also identify some areas that they’ll want to attack us on, and we’ll do the same for them. “We’ll certainly go there with respect and humility but we’ll try and go there brave and show that we can impose ourselves on the game. “They’re a really dominant side and we’re certainly not going to be naive enough to go there off the back of two bad results and think that it’s going to be anything other than a very difficult game, but I’m sure they’ll know that we do some good things well as a team as well.” Among a number of faces familiar to Town fans in the Saints squad is Flynn Downes, who joined on loan from West Ham in the summer. Quizzed on whether the 24-year-old is someone he watched progress through the Blues’ academy, McKenna says the midfielder is not someone he’s overly familiar with, although he is aware of his talent. “Not loads actually, more so I was in Manchester when he was coming through the Ipswich academy, more so than when I was at Tottenham,” he recalled. “He’s obviously a very, very good player, he has a good relationship with some of our players still and is certainly a big asset for Southampton. But not someone I know well, but a very good player and one of many very good players that they have that we’ll have to prepare for.” McKenna looks certain to be without Leif Davis, who suffered an ankle injury at Hillsborough, while he has revealed that a couple of other other players will be undergoing scans prior to making the trip down south on Monday afternoon. However, the Blues boss says he’s pleased with the overall physical condition of his squad as they go into a busy period of fixtures. “I think I’m happy with how we’re working, definitely,” he told TownTV. “Our numbers are in a good place. The physical effort, the output’s there for all to see. “But it’s going to be a big challenge. We have quite a few issues to deal with this morning. There’s going to be wear and tear over a hard season, so we’re going to need our whole squad and we’re certainly going to need them in this next run.” McKenna has fielded a settled side for most of this season and the latter period of the last campaign but with Davis injured, one or two others apparently feeling knocks and games coming thick and fast over the next few weeks, there could be a few changes at St Mary’s. Vaclav Hladky will continue in goal having kept his third clean sheet of the season on Saturday. In Davis’s probable absence, Brandon Williams will be at left-back with Harry Clarke likely to be on the right and Luke Woolfenden and Cameron Burgess the centre-halves. Skipper Sam Morsy, who picked up his fourth booking of the season at Hillsborough, will be in midfield with McKenna having an option whether to continue with Massimo Luongo or bring in fresh legs in the shape of Jack Taylor alongside the Egyptian international. Wes Burns was feeling the hamstring he pulled while away with Wales late on against the Owls, so may be one of those being sent for a scan. If the Welshman doesn’t make it, McKenna could pick either Kayden Jackson or Omari Hutchinson on the right of the three behind the striker. Conor Chaplin and Nathan Broadhead should be in their usual roles with George Hirst perhaps returning to the XI as the number nine. The Saints will be able to field Kamaldeen Sulemana, whose red-card late on against Leicester has been rescinded following an appeal, while Downes came off injured just after half-time and is considered touch and go to face his old club. Centre-half Jan Bednarek missed the Foxes match with an injury suffered while away with Poland but is expected to be ready to return against Town. Saints manager Martin says that while his team is in the early stages of coming together, Town have become a cohesive unite over the last 18 months or so. “Kieran’s done a great job,” he said. “They had a brilliant season last season. They are on the opposite end of us in terms of time together. We haven’t started with the same team yet this season. “They understand their roles brilliantly and how they all operate within the team. They had some decent success last season which helps so I have been really impressed with them. “They are methodical in their approach, and they tweak things for different opposition, and they have a real way of doing things. “They’ve started well. It is not a surprise to us but we are at home and we need to bounce back. Any opposition that we are playing tomorrow does not matter. We must bring the best versions of ourselves and make sure we stay really brave. “Friday night was not helped by conceding an early goal. It took too long to find that again and find that rhythm. Tomorrow night we need to start in the opposite way.”
Historically, the Blues have the edge having won 25 games against Southampton (24 in the league), losing 23 (17) and with 20 (19) ending in draws. But Town have gone eight games without a win against the Saints, five in the league. They last beat them back in November 2007 when goals from Jon Walters and Pablo Couñago saw Jim Magilton’s side to a 2-0 win at Portman Road. The Blues most recently won at St Mary’s during Joe Royle’s time as manager, their only success at Southampton’s current home, Alan Lee netting twice on his away debut in January 2006 to see Town to a victory by the same scoreline. The teams last met at Portman Road in an FA Cup third-round replay in January 2015 when Shane Long’s 19th-minute goal was enough to see Southampton through to the next round. Town never looked like getting back into the game against an impressive Saints outfit. In the first tie at St Mary’s, Darren Ambrose, making his first start since returning to the Blues for his third spell, put Town in front with his first goal for the club in almost 12 years in the 19th minute, but Morgan Schneiderlin equalised for the Premier League side on 33 as the game ended 1-1. The teams last faced one another in the league during Southampton’s 2011/12 Championship-promotion season, in March 2012, at St Mary’s when Jason Scotland’s late deflected goal secured the Blues a deserved 1-1 draw. The Saints went ahead in the 74th minute via Rickie Lambert but Scotland’s goal five minutes from the end claimed the point for Town. Earlier that season at Portman Road, Paul Jewell’s Town fell to their third home defeat in a week as Southampton won 5-2. The Saints were 3-0 in front at the break through Lambert (2) and David Connolly, however, Town fought back to 3-2 via Keith Andrews and Jay Emmanuel-Thomas, but Adam Lallana added two more late on to seal a deserved victory. Southampton’s squad includes a number of ex-Town players, most notably the on-loan Downes, who came through the academy and made 75 starts and 24 sub appearances, scoring three times before moving on to Swansea in the summer of 2021 for an initial £1.4 million with the Blues receiving another £1.5 million following the midfielder’s £8 million move to West Ham the following summer. Keeper Alex McCarthy spent time on loan at Town in the second half of 2011/12, making 10 appearances and impressing after a difficult start having been red-carded in his third game, a 3-1 defeat at former loan club Leeds. Winger Ryan Fraser was with the Blues during the 2015/16 season, scoring six times in 15 starts and five sub appearances before injury curtailed his spell. Full-back James Bree was on loan at Town in the second half of the 2018/19 season making 13 starts and one sub appearance. Saints full-back Ryan Manning came close to joining the Blues as an academy scholar but ultimately opted to sign for QPR. Southampton's assistant manager is Matt Gill, who was first-team coach under Paul Lambert and stayed on for the first few months of Paul Cook's tenure before departing in the summer of 2021 after just under three years at the club. Tuesday’s referee is Josh Smith from Bedfordshire, who has shown 19 yellow cards and no red in six games so far this season. Smith has already taken charge of one Town match this season, the 2-0 home victory over Stoke City in which he yellow-carded Morsy, Hladky, Janoi Donacien and one of the visitors. Prior to that, he refereed the 4-4 draw at Charlton in October in which he booked nine players - Morsy, Burns, Christian Walton, Dominic Ball, Tyreece John-Jules and four Addicks - as well as sending off home manager Ben Garner for taking his protests too far following the Blues’ second goal. Before that, he was in charge of the 4-0 win at Portsmouth in October 2021 in which he cautioned Morsy, George Edmundson and two home players, one of them Marcus Harness. Prior to that he was the man in the middle for the 2-2 home draw with the MK Dons in August 2021 in which he yellow-carded Woolfenden, Kane Vincent-Young and one visiting player. His only previous Town match before that was the 2-1 EFL Trophy defeat away at Exeter in January 2020 in which he again booked Woolfenden, as well as Toto Nsiala, Will Keane and one Grecian. Squad from: Hladky, Slicker, Clarke, Williams, Ball, Woolfenden, Burgess, Edmundson, Baggott, Morsy (c), Evans, Luongo, Taylor, Humphreys, Burns, Jackson, Chaplin, Broadhead, Harness, Aluko, Hutchinson, Hirst, Scarlett, Ladapo.
Photo: TWTD Please report offensive, libellous or inappropriate posts by using the links provided.
You need to login in order to post your comments |
   Blogs 295 bloggersIpswich Town Polls[ Vote here ] |
