McKenna: Proud of the Players, Proud of the Spirit Saturday, 10th Dec 2022 15:57 Town boss Kieran McKenna hailed the effort put in by his players following their 2-1 home victory over Peterborough at Portman Road. Conor Chaplin scored both Town’s goals with Frankie Kent having netted a leveller for Posh in the first half. The Blues appeared to step things up after half-time following an understated first half and McKenna was asked if it was an inspiring teamtalk which had given his side a boost. “No, down to the effort of the players,” he said. “You get what you deserve eventually. I felt we got what we deserved today. “I thought the effort was fantastic in the game, proud of the players, proud of the spirit, difficult game, very difficult opponent, tense stadium and the players stuck together and showed resilience and quality at times and deserved to win.” Quizzed on the comparatively flat first-half, he added: “I thought the players were excellent, I thought the game was edgy in the first 10 or 15 minutes. We’re not going to play fantastic in every game, we were playing a Peterborough team with, by my count, 10 of their outfield starters who finished off in the Championship last year and were picking up good results in the Championship, won 5-0 on the last day against Blackpool. “And we’re playing with a squad heavily depleted by injury and a group of players with two academy players at the heart of it, Luke Woolfenden at centre-half against the best forward in the league by most people’s reckoning and a 19-year-old midfielder, who alongside all the other players is giving everything they can. “I don’t think we can ask for any more. The players need support. Of course, there’s tension when you’ve dropped points late on in your last game, but we’re in a fantastic position, in my opinion we play very, very good football in comparison to many teams you’re going to see in any division in England. “We have a group of players who are giving everything for the shirt. I can’t be prouder of them today and the effort that they give and I thought they deserved the three points against a really difficult team.” Chaplin, who took his total to 10 for the season, said recently that he scores in streaks and having gone 12 matches without netting now has four in three games. “Two goals, two Conor goals really,” he said. “It was nice to be able to move his position today, something we’d wanted to look at for a little while, but having not had too many options there, so Sone [Aluko] coming back in gave us a chance to shift Conor’s position a little bit and just give him some fresh angles to attack from and positions to pick the ball in and different angles to come into the box in because we know he’s very good at that. “And he did that really well for the first goal. And the second goal shows his instinctive qualities in the box.” McKenna raised a few eyebrows by stating Aluko, who was back after three months out with a knee injury. “I couldn’t be prouder of him,” the Blues boss added. “A lot of respect for what he did. He’s back ahead of schedule, he’s trained well so he didn’t have any medical issues, he’s trained for 10 days but, of course, in a normal situation with a full squad we would start him from the bench. “I just felt that he was going to give the players a big boost and a confidence lift because they think so highly of him and I know the crowd think so much of him as well. “We planned to play him for 45 minutes, to be honest, we had a substitution mentally prepared for half-time but he looked strong in the first half and he felt fine and he wanted to go on, so I felt he really helped us to control it in the second half and it was a case more of us taking him off just to protect him at the end. “Full credit to him for getting back so quick and getting out there and the performance he delivered and it’s typical of the attitude that we’re going to need for the next few months.” Regarding Janoi Donacien limping off in the 16th minute, he said: “I could put that in the bracket of the things I’m going to give the players big credit for because you lose an important player after 10 minutes for the second time, Kane [Vincent-Young] has to come in on a cold day and I thought he got the rhythm of the game excellently and contributed well to the win. “Of course, that’s a setback, it’s a stoppage as well, which limits you in the second half because you lose one of your three stoppages, which makes it difficult to use all five substitutes at that point. It was a setback for the team in the game and the players responded to it well. “With Janoi, hopefully he’ll be back soon, I think he just rocked his ankle as he went to pass it. The pitches are getting more difficult as they’re going to as we come into the winter, so we’re going to have some knocks and bruises along the way, so let’s hope he recovers quick.” "Regarding set pieces, the Blues having scored from one and conceded from another, he reflected: “It’s football, isn’t it? It’s set pieces, they happen. We’re happy that we keep scoring. “We can do better on their goal, it’s their first corner, so of course it’s disappointing to concede. There are one or two things individually that we’ll go into that we could have done better in the situation. On the other hand, it’s short corner and a great ball on the in-swinger and it can happen. “Our record attacking-wise is very good and we want to keep scoring more set pieces that we concede and we’re doing that at the moment and we have to keep going with that, but again I thought the reaction to that was excellent because that’s a difficult moment. “I don’t think they’d had a shot or a serious shot at that point, not had a set piece and the first one they get the score from. “A weaker group of players might have into their shells at that moment but we responded well at the end of that half and in the second half.” Did he feel it was important to see the game out from a psychological perspective having allowed leads to slip late on, most recently against Fleetwood a week ago? “I think it was, I think that’s fair to say,” he said. “We try and be as consistent as we can be and I really enjoyed the training ground this week. I think we managed to box off the late equaliser that they conceded in the last game well and the players were tuned in mentally to the next game and knew what we had to do. “But, of course, there’s tension there and when you’ve conceded a couple of late goals at the end of a game it’s a bit tense when you haven’t won your last game it’s a bit quieter in the stadium, but we’re not going to win every game, the players are doing fantastically well against some really, really strong teams in this division and our performances, in my opinion, have been very good. “We just have to keep focusing on that but, of course, for the energy and the momentum, more externally, it was important to get the win.” Despite having disappointments here and there, the Blues have usually nipped any setbacks in the bud in their next match. “I think that’s probably a good sign for the group,” McKenna continued. “You’re going to have setbacks on the way. Our setbacks have been dropping points after a good performance, not playing badly and losing games. “It’s about keeping perspective. We try and do that as well as we can internally and we need to keep doing that because we’re going to have more of them along the way and in the end it will be the team that shows the most consistency of performance and manages to maintain their mentality throughout the season who will be successful in the end.” Once again, the Blues appeared to be denied a certain penalty when Kayden Jackson was hauled over at a corner. “It was similar to some of the other penalties in terms of wrestling in the box when you’ve got a clear header,” he said. “I know it happens and I know it’s hard for the referees without VAR, I think with VAR there’d be lots of stonewall penalties in those situations, but thankfully it didn’t cost us today. “I repeat what I said last week, I think to have had so much play and domination in the box here at home and to have so many appeals and to have so many challenges in the penalty area, for me, it’s really difficult to understand that we’ve had one and given away two when it’s probably 75 per cent, 25 per cent the appeals and the challenges. “I’m sure that will balance up at some point, today wasn’t one of those days, but we managed to win without it.” Looking ahead to January, McKenna was quizzed on whether he has targets lined-up with TWTD having previously reported that Brighton's Evan Ferguson and Swansea's Morgan Whittaker, who is currently on loan at Plymouth, are on the list of potential recruits. “The club’s been working since the last window and we have areas that we would like to strengthen if possible,” he said. “But my day to day focus has to be on the group of players who are giving us absolutely everything and have done since the first day and now it will be about focusing on that group, getting ready for a big, big challenge against Wycombe, but the club are working very hard and I’m involved in that process to make sure that we strengthen the squad where we can.”  Peterborough manager Grant McCann felt his team improved on last week's display when they lost by the same scoreline at home to Barnsley. “It was a better performance than last week,” he reflected. “We’ve come to a very good Ipswich team and I thought we were more than a match for them. “I’m disappointed in both goals but really in the second goal. It’s just a free ball into the box from a corner, but in terms of the play I thought we did well in our rotations, our movement and we scored a good goal from a set play, which is something we’ve been working on. “A positive as well was that the subs we made impacted the game and we’ve not seen that a lot this season. “I said to the boys, I’m really disappointed for you today because the performance was good just the result was disappointing. “I’m pleased with the performance. I hate losing but we’re doing everything we can to turn around this run of form. If we continue to play like that, we will win more than we lose and we’ll be fine.” Regarding his switch to a three-man backline, he added: “The thinking behind the formation was to try and get in behind them with Kwame [Poku]. “They play 3-4-3 or 4-2-3-1 and are very fluid and we worked on different scenarios of how we could play through or over their press. There were large spells we did it very well. The shape and distances were good and we looked a threat on the counter. “We looked dangerous from set plays and we had a large amount of control in the second half, particularly when we changed shape. We put some dangerous balls in, Ronnie Edwards should score and Ricky [-Jade Jones] should too and these are big moments in games you need to take. “If it wasn’t for us switching off at a set play, the game probably finishes as a draw.”
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