McKenna Takes Pride in Performance Despite Letting Lead Slip Saturday, 17th Sep 2022 18:39 Boss Kieran McKenna was proud of his top-of-the-table team’s display away against Sheffield Wednesday despite the Blues allowing a two-goal lead to slip as the game ended 2-2 and revealed that referee Peter Wright spoke to both managers about potentially suspending the match in the second half. Town looked to have secured a five away wins at the start of the season for the first time in the club’s history after Kayden Jackson and a Dominic Iorfa own goal had put them two goals in front but George Byers and Michael Smith netted - the latter having looked offside - to level and share the points. McKenna admitted it was tough to take having been 2-0 in front: “That’s obviously one of the overriding emotions at the moment, the disappointment because at 2-0 it was such a good performance. We executed the game plan so well, almost everything that we wanted to do in the game. “And from there you feel that you deserve and you want to go on and win it. The game changed on a set play, obviously we can do better in terms of not giving it away and defending it, and from there it was always going to be a difficult last 20 minutes. “There’s pride there in the performance, pride individually and as a team, how we competed in the game and disappointment, of course, of the lead slipping. “But it’s football, it can happen, especially in stadiums like that and we have to learn from it and I’m sure we will because the boys are getting better and better, and we just need to keep learning and improving.” Did he feel there was a question mark regarding Wednesday’s equaliser? “I thought it was offside at the time, to be honest. I haven’t seen really good footage, I have seen an image from the side where it does look offside, but that was my feeling at the time, it looked like the striker was ahead of the defenders and ahead of the ball.” Ahead of the game Town wouldn’t have felt a draw was a bad result but having been 2-0 in front it feels like two points dropped. “We certainly had the intent to play for the win,” McKenna continued. “But it’s a very tough place to come, their home record is fantastic, they’re an excellent team, they have fantastic players and it’s a really tough place to come and play. “A draw’s not a bad result at the start of the day but from 2-0 up and having done so many things so well, we feel like we could have got the win. I think we would have deserved it.” He added: “We have to stay balanced. It’s a really tough place to come, they’ve got a fantastic home record, they were way ahead of us as a football club last year in the first year back in League One and they’ve added and I think they’re a much better team than they were last year this year. “It was a difficult game, we knew we were going to do very well to compete, we did do very well to come here and compete, had ourselves a lead but they’re a big threat on set plays and if you give one away, you know they can produce a moment of top-end quality like they did for the goal. “We can’t change it now, we can only learn and improve from that couple of moments and take a lot of pride and encouragement from all the good things we did in the game.” The Northern Irishman was pleased with the way his team dealt with the atmosphere: “Very good, I thought we did that part of the game very well, we wanted a fast start, we wanted to catch them out. “We managed to do that. We knew we had to defend, we actually wanted to defend a little bit more on block and hold our shape and entice them out a little bit to create some space for us, and we managed to do that. “And I thought mentally we managed the game pretty well. I guess you could say that in the last 20 minutes we gave away too many set plays by not getting back into position earlier enough and being a little bit overzealous to try and win the ball when really the set play was probably going to be their best chance of scoring if we defended well on shape. “I think that bit of it we can and we will learn from, but overall I thought they dealt with the occasion well.” McKenna had praise for Jackson: “I thought he was fantastic, I thought he was unplayable, I thought he was the key player on the pitch across both teams and he did everything that we asked of him, and everything that we see from him in training, to be fair. “I’m delighted for him, I thought there were lots of good individual performances, I thought Tyreece [John-Jules] played his role really well off the front and it’s disappointing because when you have so many things go right, you feel like you’ve earned the three points. But wasn’t meant to be, we take the point and we move on to next week.” Is the role breaking from the left Jackson’s best? “I think the position’s not so important, it’s just about using his attributes. “Everywhere on the last line centrally, off one side or the other side, or in a little bit of a half-space where he was today, we know anywhere on the last line if you can get him the service his speed, but more than his speed, the timing and the intelligence of his runs is very, very good. “We know he can give us a threat in different games and in different areas and he’s a player you have to utilise his strengths because they are so outstanding, he’s a player who gives everything for the team, which is very important to the culture of the group.” Does McKenna believe the two sides will be towards the top of the division come May? “In our case I certainly hope so. I can’t see Sheffield Wednesday not with the strength that they have, the additions that they’ve made. “They’ve kept all the best players from when they were in the Championship and they’ve added top, top, top end players for this level, so I can’t see anything other than them being there or thereabouts. “But that’s not our focus at the moment. We focus entirely on ourselves from here on in, we’ve got another tough game on Tuesday night against an Arsenal team who are doing well in their league, but more importantly we have a really difficult trip and game next Sunday in an early kick-off, so that’s going to be a massive challenge and we’re going to turn our heads towards that.” While McKenna was understandably frustrated with dropping two points, the Blues remain top on goal difference from Portsmouth - who also drew 2-2 at home to Plymouth - and are still unbeaten after nine matches. “I think the unbeaten bit is nice because we’re showing a level of resilience in general,” he reflected. “I know at the end we conceded goals and we could have won, but you need resilience to come here and put yourself in a 2-0 position, and we needed to be resilient in the first half when they had their spells of pressure. “It’s not like we didn’t show resilience today, we did in certain aspects of the game, we just didn’t defend two moments well enough. “I think we take the positives, the team is improving, I thought the mentality and the physicality of the team shone at times today in a very a difficult place and showed the growth from last year. “I thought we showed our versatility as a team today in terms of the changes we were able to make individually, the difference in the set-up and also the way we defended in a little bit more of a block to open up some counter-attack spaces as well. “We showed lots of growth and development as a team and it’s important we keep in that direction.” Regarding the set-up, which at times looked like a 4-3-3 or perhaps 4-2-1-3 formation with Jackson advanced on one flank and Wes Burns on the other, McKenna added: “As I’ve said, we don’t speak to players about numbers, it was more about roles today and we play some of these teams again, so I won’t say everything about the roles but Tyreece obviously had a role today that he executed very well in the spaces that we wanted to get him in. “And Wes and Kayden had different roles that they executed very well and I thought the players tactically put in a really disciplined performance on and off the ball, and certainly in that element of it we probably deserved a win, but it wasn’t to be and we move on.” In the second half, referee Wright had a word with McKenna and Wednesday manager Darren Moore which the Blues boss says related to the objects thrown on the pitch by Owls fans. “He was just speaking about the objects which had been thrown onto the pitch and said from a safety point of view that they were going to have to possibly review whether the game would be suspended if it continued,” McKenna explained. “We’re glad that it didn’t reach that point and the game was able to finish.” McKenna says Town have heard nothing regarding an international call from Egypt regarding skipper Sam Morsy and says youngster Cameron Stewart being called into the Northern Ireland U21s makes no difference to the position regarding potentially having the trip to Plymouth called off. “No, I haven’t heard anything [from Egypt], so we can only assume that he’ll be with us next week and we look forward to the game.” Owls manager Darren Moore was proud of the way his team fought back in what was a difficult game. “I've said to the boys now that I'm really proud, despite all the incidents that went on in the game, of the way we kept our heads and kept going right to the end,” he told Yorkshire Live. “To come back from 2-0 down in the manner that we did after the two goals we conceded was good. “We stuck to the game plan. I wanted to make a couple of subs at 2-0 down. We still made the changes and we knew Ipswich had put a lot into the game. “We knew at the end of the game that spaces would appear. When George Byers scored from a set play, the roof game off at Hillsborough and it gave the players that bit more momentum and impetus. We kept on going. “I was really pleased to see Smudge [Smith] come up with his goal because he led the line really well and got another goal.” The home support showed their annoyance with referee Peter Wright throughout the game but Moore was diplomatic when asked what he made of the officials’ performances. “I could feel the frustration around it today. As a manager looking at the game and how I have got to conduct myself, I would rather not speak about the officials. “I want to talk about my team and how they went about the game. We got something out of the game.” Regarding the second-half conversation between himself, Wright and McKenna due to bottles and other items being thrown on the pitch, he added: “He said if another object was thrown on the pitch he was going to abandon the game for the safety of everybody on the pitch. He said he won't condone and have it anymore. “While ever we grow frustrated, we are not a sole entity in terms of how we manage the game. We have got to all govern and adhere to the rules. We know that objects being thrown onto the pitch is something that you don't do. It is something that we can all learn from today. “He did warn me and Kieran that he would take the teams off and abandon the game, which would have been an absolute catastrophe for us as a football club being the home team. “I'm glad no more objects came onto the pitch and I'm glad that the fans witnessed from us that fighting, never-say-die spirit. “I am really pleased with the players and I said to them in there I'm really proud of them. They gave everything for the cause to get something out of the game. “Even at the end going 2-2 with six minutes to go, we thought the momentum was with us and we would fashion another chance and the winning goal.”
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