McKenna: Our Most Disappointing Result But Response Has Been Good Thursday, 24th Oct 2024 17:05 Town boss Kieran McKenna says last week’s 2-0 defeat at home to Everton was the most disappointing result and performance of the season, and most disappointing day at Portman Road during 2024/25, but says the response has been good this week. The Blues, still without a win following their promotion, gifted the Toffees two first-half goals and from there never really looked like getting anything from the match, their second successive loss following the 4-1 reverse at West Ham prior to the international break. “I think it was our most disappointing result and aspects of the performance of the season, I think that's fair to say,” McKenna said when asked if this is the first time he’s had to lift his players following a match this season. “Up until two games ago with the Aston Villa game, everyone inside and outside the club could see the momentum in the performances and having four games unbeaten and lots of progression. “Then we've had two games either side of an international break that haven't gone our way and where poor moments have probably cost us and we haven't managed to muster up a response in terms of a performance to get something from the game. “Everyone was disappointed after Saturday. When you lose any home game for us with the home record that we've had it's extra disappointing, but we know these challenges and setbacks are going to come over the course of the season. “It's probably the first really disappointing day that we've had at Portman Road this season.The Liverpool game we lost but I think everyone saw it as a positive day. “It's probably the first disappointing day we've had at our stadium, but you're going to have them over the course of the season and we've had them in every other season anyway, and we're certainly going to have more of them in the Premier League. “It's a challenge to overcome, the response has been good this week and we go onto the next game.” McKenna has often spoken this season about the team developing as the campaign continues, but says there can be peaks and troughs along the way. “I don't think it's always a linear progression as you're trying to develop,” he reflected. “We've taken some good steps forward and then probably a couple of steps back in the last couple of games so it's not always a linear progression. “There's also reasons for those, we know we've got some really tricky injury situations at the moment that are going to continue into this weekend that have made it impossible for us to build a consistency with some new players that we would have liked to in terms of having a settled line-up, so that brings a challenge onto itself. “I think we've made some good steps, but if you had asked the question two games ago everyone's perception would have been very different. “If you ask the question now after two games either side of an international break where players have travelled all over the world and we've had probably a couple of days as a group, the perception's a little bit different. “For us, it's to understand the details within that and the things we're consistently doing well over the eight games that we've had and the things that we consistently need to do better. “Then other than that stay pretty stable and not get too caught up after a spell of games where people think we're doing very well and now a couple of games where we've not done so well is to stay stable and focus on trying to improve and take that into the next game. “The next game is always an opportunity and that comes this Saturday against Brentford and it's up to us to try and deliver the best performance that we can.” McKenna admits that the current injury issues don’t help the process of bedding in players. “It's certainly a big challenge,” he said. “We know the reality of signing players late in the window in our situation isn't ideal. “Of course, that wasn't the goal of the club and you have to do the very best you can in the market, do what's right for the football club and we had players coming in late which always makes it a challenge. “Other than that, there's been some things that have been really positive. As a group they've integrated really well off the pitch and we've seen some really positive things on the pitch. “Some of the younger players that we've brought in that you can easily forgive taking a lot of time to settle into the Premier League have settled in really well and as a group there's a lot of positive things. “But there's no doubt that trying to integrate new players in the toughest division in the world alongside a large majority of players who haven't played in the division before when you're not going to win games every week, that makes it a bigger challenge and that's what we're in the middle of. “But it's nothing different to what we expected, we knew it was going to be a big challenge and I think there's a lot of positive signs here at the training ground.” Inevitably, back-to-back defeats have led to calls for changes of system and personnel from fans, but McKenna says the Blues don’t play quite the same way as they did in the Championship and League One in any case. “The reality of the position as a newly promoted team is we're going to lose a lot more games than we have previously,” he said. “When you lose games, there's always going to be another opinion of how you could do things. “That's the reality and as a manager you know your theory gets tested every week and you're going to have a thousand other theories that will never get tested so will never be wrong. “We can only go off the evidence of what we see every day and do the best that we can. In terms of sticking to our principles, we're trying to find the right balance between that and adapting to be as competitive as we have been. We had to do that in the Championship and we've had to do that this season. “To say or to think that we're doing exactly the same this season as we did last season would be untrue if you go into the details. To say we do exactly the same in terms of details this season as we did in League One when we had one of the best sides in the division would be completely untrue. “People probably see some of the same personnel and the loose framework and think that everything is exactly the same, but we have always adapted and adjusted little details game-by-game to give us the best chance to be competitive. “We continue to do that every week and we know we're going to have to do that over the course of the season. “A lot of those details aren't always going to be apparent, we're not going to go from A to Z week-by-week in terms of looking like a drastically different football team, but within that there's so many details that we go into every week that we try and adjust to give ourselves the best chance to be competitive. “We continue to have to try and do that, especially in a period where we're challenged a little bit with injuries and availability, it's about trying to find the right balance to be competitive in each game. To be competitive in a Premier League football match you need a real balance across a whole load of different categories.” Despite the defeats, when the game is reviewed with players on video, positives from the displays are pointed out to them. “We always do that anyway, that's a part of the process,” he continued. “The reality is if you look at the two goals we conceded against Everton, you're probably not going to get anything from the game. “Those goals are completely stripped in context of system, shape, tactics and philosophy. If you make two big mistakes in your penalty area, one from open play and one from a set play and give one of the wiliest teams in the Premier League those goals, it’s not impossible to get something from the game, but it's going to be very difficult, especially in our position. “The West Ham game was pretty similar if you look at the goals we conceded and at the moment there have probably been too many goals and not always from the same type of scenario. “When you have goals like that in a Premier League game it's going to be really difficult, so it's up to us to work through that to try and identify any trends. “If there's a trend in terms of goals that we're conceding and mistakes that are being made, then you have to try and address it and speak with the group and individuals and try and find the solutions to eradicate that. “Sometimes it's just a human sport being played at a really high level and they're going to happen. “We know that the course of both of those games could have been drastically different, we know that in the West Ham game we had big chances at 1-1 that would have changed the complexion. Even the feeling at half-time would have been very different if the whistle had blown eight or nine minutes earlier, but they're ifs. “We know in the Everton game there were big moments to take the lead, there was a big moment with a penalty and we've given away two really poor goals in the first half. “It's two games after a pretty good run where everyone was positive about the progression It's two games where we've conceded a couple of goals that have made it very difficult to get anything from a Premier League football match. “We know underneath that there's been some good things, they're never going to be over-highlighted of course and rightly so when the game doesn't go your way. “It's hard when you're dealing with humans to keep at your very best when you have the disappointment of things going against you and mistakes that have hurt us. It’s hard to then deliver your best performance in the football match. But that's what we have to work to do, it's not the last mistake we're going to make this season. “Apart from identifying if there's any trends in things that we need to speak about, the main thing you can control is your response. You're going to have setbacks in football, you're going to have setbacks in life, you don't know how many you're going to get but it's about how you get back up again. “A lot of our work is to address the fact that in the second half of both games we didn't manage to produce the response that we want to make. That's been where most of our focus around those games and the mistakes has been. “Other than that, we know that we're doing some things well, some of the football that we've played at times and some of our best moves look like we can be really effective and be a really good side even in this division. “You can look at the first chance we had for Jack Clarke and our ability to play through the pitch as quickly as we did and carve a really good defensive system open to create a big chance is still there. “We've had moments of control in each game where we find our right structure, our right position and we look like we can work the opposition really hard. “We've had moments where we've defended really well and high, we've pressed really aggressively and got lots of high regains at home and been a difficult team to play against, and we've had moments where we've defended with lots of bodies back behind the ball and looked like we can be really resolute defensively. “But ,of course, there's been too many moments in the other direction. So, for us, it's trying to be more consistent, making more of the game look like that, trying to eradicate anything we can address in terms of the mistakes, and knowing that they're still going to come over the course of the season at the level with at. “Can we be defined by our response to those, which although difficult we believe is still possible.”
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