Boss Kieran McKenna admits he’s virtually putting a new side together given the changes which have taken place at Town over the summer.

The Blues have lost a number of players who were core members of the team which won back-to-back promotions and played in the Premier League, skipper Sam Morsy, fellow midfielder Massimo Luongo, defenders Cameron Burgess and Axel Tuanzebe, and forwards Omari Hutchinson, Nathan Broadhead and Liam Delap.

McKenna is integrating new additions Kasey McAteer, Chuba Akpom, Azor Matusiwa, Ashley Young, Cedric Kipre and David Button, while Jens Cajuste has returned from Napoli for a second season on loan and with further signings expected before the deadline a week on Monday.

The pace of change is illustrated by Leif Davis being the only player to have started both today’s 1-0 defeat at Preston and the Blues’ last match at Deepdale, the 3-2 loss in January 2024.

“That’s the reality of it,” McKenna said when it was put to him that he is essentially having to build a new team. “That’s come around pretty quickly, but I think the cycle of a team goes a lot quicker when you have the journey that we have had.

“If you stay in the same division, have maybe one promotion then you keep the team together for maybe three, four, five, six years sometimes at times.

“But the scale of what we went through meant that the cycle of that team that did terrificly and we loved being a part of came around quicker than we would have anticipated for a lot of different reasons, not that we wouldn’t have wanted because part of it is the success of the club.

“The situation is what it is. We have a new team to build. We’re not where we want to be yet with the team. The situation, the expectation on us is different and I understand and we expect that, but the reality is that it’s a new group and a group that hasn’t been together that long, they haven’t played together in terms of starting matches very much.

“The reality is they haven’t won together very much either because if we’re talking about the players who joined us last year, they were trying to compete in the toughest league in the world at a brand new club for the first time at that level for nearly everyone.

“There’s a lot of work to do and we’re going to be trying to do that work under a fair bit of expectation. But that’s the reality and that’s what we have to step up to. We have to bring this team together, produce a team that we can be proud of, that we can be successful with and we need to do it as quickly as humanly possible.”

McKenna admits it’s a big week for the club as the Blues look to add to the squad, but with his mind still on the defeat to the Lilywhites.

“I think so,” he reflected. “I can’t really put my head to the recruitment side at the moment because I’m frustrated that we’ve not delivered better as a group with what we have here.

“I know the reasons for that, but it’s not about making excuses, it’s about keeping the demand strong on ourselves that we need to produce better.

“There are some pieces to the squad that we’d like to add to to really be as complete and as strong as we’d like to be and hopefully we can make some progress on that this week.

“We’ve got to make sure the numbers are right and deep enough that we have the cover, but not too deep that people are going to feel detached from what’s going on on the pitch.

“We’ve got to get all the right over the next nine or 10 days that’s left, but my overriding thought at the moment is on the group that’s here and how we push to get the most out of ourselves.”

Photo: TWTD

KiwiTractor added 21:38 - Aug 25 Firstly, I’ve been a big fan of Kieran McKenna, and I really hope he can turn it around at Ipswich, but doubts that started creeping in at the start of this year are continuing to grow. Our successive promotions were off the back of team spirit – we were a good team, but we weren’t a great team. I loved that. He then spent in excess of £120m and didn’t even get close to keeping us in the EPL – and it seems that team spirit no longer exists. He talks about having to build a new team, but 10 of our current starters were at the club last season. This excuse has been rolled out in successive seasons, but nearly every other club in the Championship is in a similar situation and some of them have hit the ground running – we have brought in 6 players (and that includes Button, who won’t play and Cajuste who knows our systems), Birmingham for example have brought in 10 new players…. Why aren’t they struggling? He seems incapable of changing the way we play either match to match or during a match, when our approach doesn’t seem to be working (confirmed by one league win in 2025). Our build up play is so slow that teams generally find it very easy to defend against us – as on paper at least, it looks like we have some players that would enable us to play at pace and really try and stretch the opposition. What’s happened to taking the ball to the byline and getting a cross in? The tedious passing across the back line/keeper, to then just give the ball away anyway and put ourselves under pressure is mind-boggling – I’m trying to remember the last time it actually worked and we were able to pass out from the back, through a team and score? Even something as simple as a throw-in – has anyone noticed that throw-ins by Johnson and Davis nearly always end up with the opposition (don’t bother taking it quickly, let’s wait until the opposition are ready….). His loyalty to some players over the past year, when there are clearly other/better options, is also head scratching – I don’t think I need to name names. I’m looking for and hoping for any small hints that something is changing, but I’m yet to see anything and my concern grows. The deafening silence from the owners is also a worry. As a start, I want to see the players giving 100%, showing some passion and fighting for each other – that’s the bare minimum and a base to start from.

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