Frustrated Kieran McKenna felt his team created more than enough chances to have beaten Watford, the game having ended 1-1 after the Blues failed to take a number of late second-half opportunities.

Imran Louza gave the Hornets the lead on 16 with their first serious attack of the match, but Jaden Philogene levelled five minutes later to take his tally for the season to six.

Town had plenty of opportunities to win it, especially late on, with Ivan Azon, Marcelino Nunez, Jack Taylor and Cedric Kipre all unable to convert good opportunities.

“Frustrated with the result, frustrated to just get a point in the game,” McKenna said. “Of course, there were some ups and downs in the game, but I thought there were more positives than negatives and certainly on chances created we’ve done more than enough to win the game, so we’re frustrated to only come out of it with a point.

“But we have to keep learning and improving, take the lessons from it. We’ve conceded a poor goal, so we’re all disappointed with that, at a moment when we’ve not really had to do any defending and we’re all back there as a team.

“The reaction to the goal was really good, that’s a big positive, learned from previous lessons. Came together well as a group, got straight back into our football, kept cool heads, scored a really good goal, so we get ourselves to half-time in a decent position.

“And I think most of the second half we’ve chased it well. It’s not easy when a team are defending deep and really trying to hang on for the result for a lot of the half.

“You’ve got to work the ball wide, you’ve got to get into good crossing positions, you’ve got to get bodies in the box.

“We did that, we got a couple of great chances off it. We had some shots around the edge, we had some chances from set plays, we did enough of the things that you need to do in that situation to feel that over the course of time we certainly would have won that second half and won the game.”

Azon had perhaps Town’s best two opportunities, nodding one wide, while Watford keeper Egil Selvik made a very good save from the other, also a header.

The Spaniard, on loan from Serie A Como for the season, is still to open his account for the Blues despite having come close in virtually every game he’s played.

“As a forward, you can only keep getting in the right positions and he’s doing that and he’s giving us good energy, whether he starts, whether he comes on,” McKenna said.

“He’s had chances all the time he’s on the pitch, so he’ll be frustrated not to score. Of course, we’re all frustrated we didn’t take one of the chances and we’ve probably got quite a few forwards in that category who maybe can’t quite believe how they’ve not scored yet.

“But I’m sure when the first goal goes in with quite a few of them on an individual level they’ll feel a lot better and our execution in terms of taking chances and being clinical will go up.

“It’s obvious to say, but you can see it with the boys on the left. When you get your first goal, whether that’s Jaden’s against Sheffield United here, Jack [Clarke] took the penalty against Derby, and it all feels really different and things fall to you and you’re really clinical.

“We’ve not had that across the frontline. We need it and we need it sooner rather than later, but the boys are trying, working hard, getting into good positions pretty consistently, so I’m sure on an individual level goals will come and that will help us as a team win more games.”

Watford wideman Kwadwo Baah appeared very fortunate not to be shown a second yellow card in the 69th minute after clattering Darnell Furlong but McKenna says the incident was a long way from his technical area.

“It was right in the far corner from me, so my focus was on us,” he said. “I didn’t have a big opinion on that, to be honest.”

In the second half, there was a frank exchange of views on the edge of the Town penalty area between Philogene and Azor Matusiwa after Watford had counter-attacked with the winger on the floor claiming he had been fouled. Other players stepped in to calm the situation down.

“I don’t know the details of it,” McKenna said. “Of course, both were emotional in the game, both trying to in the game.

“They know that it shouldn’t happen on the pitch. These things happen all the time, training ground, behind closed doors, but you don’t want it to happen on the pitch because you don’t want to give off the wrong impression as the boys are united and those two are.

“It was just a bit of passion that spilt over, but they both know it needs to stay in-house and discuss these things in the dressing room.

“The players discussed that themselves and they know that, and those two boys will learn from that and they’ll both be ready to help us get the result on Saturday.”

Photo: TWTD

Thegeniusofmuhren added 11:06 - Nov 5 @poet sadly chances created don't translate to points. I'm not worried about where we are or how well we'll do but we do need a proven forward. I like Hirst and what he brings to the team but he's not going to get 15+ goals. Playing two upfront is never going to happen and apart from Philogene, there's not many goals in the team. Would like to see more goals from defence on set pieces and some real gut busting runs from midfield to get in the box. Anyway, most of us on here are behind the team no matter what and we're certainly no experts so we go again and hopefully bury the chances we're creating.

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blues1 added 11:46 - Nov 5 Cressi. What are you on about? We had almost total control of ths midfield. Really dont know what game u were watching. And we were creating chances before tge subs,came on.
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Gazelle added 11:47 - Nov 5 If the three sitters we missed had gone in there wouldn’t have been all these complaints about McK and team changes, don’t forget we’ve another hard game on Saturday. We’ll be there or thereabouts come April.
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TimmyH added 12:09 - Nov 5 For 80% of the game just too laboured and not enough...with about 20 minutes left started to create some chances but woeful finishing. Up until this match I felt a tad sorry for Azon as he'd been a bit unlucky not to score, hit a post and been close a couple of times but last night 2 sitters that a player like Keifer Moore would have buried, the longer he goes on without scoring you have to wonder but that's the same with a number of other players including ones that played last season in the Premiership/

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TimmyH added 12:13 - Nov 5 Posters saying we played well want to OPEN their eyes up!!...80% of that match we were largely laboured with little quality other than Matisuwa and Egeli at times, only until the 70 minute mark we started to open them up... We need to have much more intensity early on not towards the end.
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MathieandMarshall added 13:03 - Nov 5 On another night we win 3 or 4-1 and everything rosy, however... Another soft goal conceded is a concern and the lack of composure in front of goal also a worry. I hate looking back, but we seem to have moved on some very tidy finishers, spent a load of money and replaced with players who despite looking tidy on the ball, cant actually finish! If you take Philogene out of the equation, who else do you see pick up the ball around the box and feel confident that the net will bulge?

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55015Deltic added 13:55 - Nov 5 There’s no steel in the team. We get bullied easily. The misses are unforgivable especially with so many! Very poor. There’s no consistency, which is no surprise as the Team is changed every week. No other Team does this. The Players seem naive, undeveloped and child like. Somethings not right at this Club….
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55015Deltic added 13:59 - Nov 5 Why does McKenna drop in form players?! I think McKenna and ITFC needs to be open about what the hell is going on…. We have spent a fortune!
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CaliforniaForever added 14:01 - Nov 5 From my perspective we played very well. They were quite lucky with the deflection teeing up their goal, but also TBF to them they had someone in the right place as deflection happened. There was a spell around 70 mins(?) where Watford had successive opportunities down their right-hand side, but other than that didn't look especially threatening to me. Also, it's not really the same formation every week, different players are slotting into different places depending on the nature of the opponent and point in the game. No panic from me, it's a difficult league and we're actually playing something nice to watch! Unrelated: If we were changing formation every week, I wonder how many would complain we aren't picking a system and sticking to it.

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Cakeman added 14:41 - Nov 5 I agree ArnieM, why change a winning team. You would never see the likes of Arsenal or Man City do that. Nunez and Taylor were outstanding at QPR. Should have started with them against Watford and if it didn’t work out then change it. Quite interesting that after just 3 minutes we got a free kick in Nunez territory but sadly he was on the bench. I’m not saying he would have scored but he would have been our best option.

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blueoutlook added 14:48 - Nov 5 Keep tinkering with the team when it’s winning and this is what happens. FFS McKenna,when will you learn ?!
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Linkboy13 added 15:30 - Nov 5 We wouldn't be talking about tinkering with the team if we had taken our chances.
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armchaircritic59 added 18:16 - Nov 5 Crawfordsboot, and so they should as they are probably 20% or so fitter! In the 80's, teams met other teams on a level playing field of the same sort of fitness levels, just as teams today meat other teams at the same level of fitness. One other thing, this 3 games a week thing is wrong, if it's a Saturday, then midweek followed by another Saturday, it's 8 days. You obviously count the first day in the sequence as it's a playing day. I will repeat the main theme from some previous posts recently. Yes players are fitter today then they've ever been, yes the games are faster, as you would expect as they are able to sustain it. 3 games in 8 days should not be beyond highly paid, highly trained professional athletes, who work 2/3 days a week for 90+mins and for 2/3 other days of the week, practice working for a while! Oh and remember even 3 days in 8 days is false, how many of them are on the pitch for the full match duration for all 3 games? Very largely the defenders who of course don't run around so much. Finally, if you asked a player, whether they'd prefer to play or train, I think we all know the answer!

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herfie added 22:21 - Nov 5 Only way forward is to keep working hard towards continuous improvement - both individually and collectively. In truth, however, we are behind the curve, and the owners will surely be concerned that, relative to their significant investment, we appear to be a mid-table team. Way to go though; but KM needs to turn his expensively assembled squad into a consistent, winning, team. The ‘still gelling’ mantra needs be dropped; look at Sunderland!

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