Blues boss Kieran McKenna splits the season up into blocks with the next one starting at West Brom on Saturday and running until the New Year’s Day game at Stoke City.

The Town manager says it will be a busy period of the season with the Blues facing 10 league games, among them the East Anglian derby against Norwich and matches at home to leaders Leicester and away against third-placed Leeds United.

“I think you can block it in whatever way you want,” McKenna said. “It is pretty natural to look at it up to maybe the Stoke game, where we've got 10 league games.

“You don't get a rest in this period of the season, but a change is as good as a rest. So, the FA Cup [third round] sort of breaks up the fixture list. So we've got 10 games in pretty quick succession.

“No doubt about it, when you look at a fixture list at the start of the season, you look and think, ‘Okay, that's a really busy period and we're going to be playing a lot of teams who you would have expected to be up in the top end of the table’.

“It's a period to really embrace. Ten games out of 46 is the next block. Every game is as important in terms of our development as a team, trying to deliver performances and trying to accumulate points.

“I don't see any block being any more or less important. It's certainly a block where we have a lot of games and certainly a block where we play a lot of really good teams in a pretty short space.

“But that's a challenge that we're really looking forward to. We, the club, were out of the Championship for too many years, really. We wanted to be back playing against big teams, big clubs, in full stadiums and with interest in the games.

“We'd rather be playing in full stadiums on TV than in empty stadiums with people not having too much of an interest. So it's great, and it's a challenge to really embrace.

“We know it's going to take a big, big effort from the group, from the squad, from the club really over the next 10 games. It's going to take everyone in the squad to be ready to play. It's going to take some big performances. We're going to have to stick to our philosophy.

“We're going to have to find ways to compete even when we're not playing well because we're certainly not going to play well every minute in the next 10 games, and we're going to have to find different ways and different solutions and lots of great challenges. 

“I think it's a period to really enjoy, to be honest, and not look past the next game as each one comes, knowing that whichever way any individual game goes, another big and really good and challenging one is coming up a few days later.

“For us who want to be in football and enjoy our work and for the supporters who enjoy seeing us play and enjoy seeing us tested and challenged, it's a great period to look forward to.”

McKenna says squad depth will come into play and cites the 17 players who have scored goals in all competitions this season, 14 in the Championship, as illustrative of the way everyone has been kept involved up to now.

“I think the contribution from the squad has been really good. I don't know what the stat is, but I know we've had a really high number of goalscorers,” he said.

“To start with, it reflects pretty well that we're sharing the responsibilities across the group. The minutes have been shared well.

“Of course, having the wins in the Carabao Cup helped to keep everybody game-ready through the block. It sets us up pretty well for the fixtures coming up. 

“We've got a lot of players who have already made a start in the league and lots of players who have got good minutes in their legs.

“So the competition is good, the options in different positions are good and that sets us in a good position going into a really busy run of games.”

Photo: TWTD

Bert added 17:25 - Nov 23 I don’t recall any manager of our club in the last 15 years saying anything like KMcK says in his pre match interviews.
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MK1 added 17:51 - Nov 23 Tough set of fixtures coming, but we will come out the other side still 2nd and maybe stronger than now. bring it on.
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Pencilpete added 18:41 - Nov 23 I’m pretty sure Paul Cook answered every question he was asked with “that’s football”
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BotesdaleBlue added 20:11 - Nov 23 Pencilpete - I seem to remember Paul Cook shutting down many lines of quite valid questions every single week when I listened to his interviews on radio Suffolk, often for no good reason that I could fathom. He just seemed unwilling to answer the questions and I thought that response was very poor for an ITFC manager and disrespectful to our fans who wanted to know answers to these questions. Kieran's responses to media questions, by contrast, are superb. No other word for it

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765765 added 21:48 - Nov 23 Bert agreed it all seems so analysed and intelligent, and clearly working in terms of results
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Karlosfandangal added 13:47 - Nov 24 I can see Town dropping some points of this period……but it will be the same for the sides around us too. Need to stop letting in early goals and the need to score 3 to win. If Town can do that you can forget what I said above as Town will be top with a small gap from second
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1st_March_1980 added 14:49 - Nov 24 I've been thinking about this block of games and mentally preparing myself for some disappointments. Am I being too pessimistic here with my points tally? Away West Bromwich Albion - hope for (hf) 1, preparing for (pf) 0 Home Millwall (hf 3, pf 3) Home Coventry City (hf 3, pf 3) Away Middlesbrough (hf 1, pf 0) Away Watford (hf 3, pf 1) Home Scum (hf 3, pf 3) Away Leeds (hf 1, pf 0) Home Leicester (hf 1, pf 0) Home QPR (hp 3, pf 3) Away Stoke (hf 3, pf 1)

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Dissboyitfc added 08:18 - Nov 25 1st march1980 that is predicting an average of 1.4 points per game( mid table form) which compared to our current average 2.4 is quite a drop, that would put us on 53 points and if you consider that 6th place last year only required 69 points that would mean only requiring 1 point per game from the remaining 20 games to finish on 73! If we have a better than expected December Top 2 finish could be looking good! I think we will more than match Leicester, expecting at least a draw from that!

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