Town boss Kieran McKenna admitted that it’s now “more than likely” that the Blues will be playing Championship football next season following their 2-1 home defeat to relegation rivals Wolves.

The Old Gold, who came from a goal down at half-time to secure the three points, are now 12 points plus a significantly better goal difference ahead of the Blues with only seven games left to play.

Town had looked on course to win back-to-back Premier League fixtures for the first time this season after Liam Delap gave them the lead on 16 but the visitors were well on top in the second half and bagged the points via goals from sub Pablo Sarabia on 72 and Jorgen Strand Larsen 12 minutes later.

Asked what he put the second half turnaround down to, McKenna said: “I think it was a really competitive first half, the players gave absolutely everything to the game, to the first half and to the second half.

“At 1-0 up, Wolves are a good team, so if you don’t manage to go and get a second goal then they’re going to put some pressure on.

“They put some pressure on, we probably weren’t able to maintain our energy levels that we had in the first half, which was fairly to be expected after the effort that the players put into the game on Wednesday night and some of the physical challenges that we have in the squad at the moment.

“So we weren’t quite able to maintain our energy levels. Wolves had a strong period probably from half-time to about 60 minutes but I thought we had seen that off and steadied a little bit and we had some set plays and some little opportunities, probably between 60 and 70 minutes, but we weren’t able to go and get the second goal.

“And then the goal goes their way and that changes the game. You can say it’s maybe a slightly fortuitous goal. We were all back, we were defending, we blocked the first shot and it popped up to Sarabia’s foot and he bobbles it into the corner.

“You can say it’s another goal from a Spanish international, who’s come from PSG, who has come off the bench fresh and managed to find the big moment to pull Wolves back into the game.

“At that point, it felt like they had all the energy and confidence on the pitch and we weren’t able to quite find the response and we weren’t able to do enough to get the result.”

McKenna named an unchanged team for the first time this season, despite the 2-1 win at Bournemouth having been only three days ago.

“Of course, that was a consideration,” he said. “But all things considered, as we do every week, consider everything that goes into it, the players were keen to go again.

“We came through [Wednesday] despite some fatigue but without any fresh injury issues and I think the set-up was well-suited for the challenges that Wolves were going to bring.

“So we thought it was the right thing to go with and I think we competed really well in the first half, just weren’t able to quite do enough to get the win.”

Quizzed on his quadruple substitution at 1-1 and whether it was throwing caution to the wind, the Blues manager responded: “I don’t think it was caution to the wind because nothing changed really in our shape or anything like that. Conor Townsend had a hamstring issue, so he had to come off.

“We wanted to get Jaden [Philogene], Conor [Chaplin] and Hirsty [George Hirst] as fresh attacking players on the pitch. We didn’t feel that we could do it too early because Wolves were a threat throughout the game and in the second half they were a really, really big team, so set plays were a big issue.

“I think we came to the 80th minute and today we knew a draw almost definitely wasn’t going to be a result we would have been happy with and we wanted to go with everything to get the win, but we weren’t able to turn the momentum round whenever they got it and with the first goal.”

It was put to McKenna it was difficult to match Joao Gomes, who was outstanding in the Wolves midfield.

“That’s the story of the season, that’s the strength of the league,” the Northern Irishman reflected. “You’ve got Gomes and Andre and [Matheus] Cunha when he’s fit, I think that’s there or thereabouts Brazil’s first-choice two centre-mids and number 10, maybe with [Newcastle’s Bruno] Guimaraes in competition for that as well.

“They’re a top team, they’re one place above us, but they’re a really, really strong team, who have been in the Premier League for a long time and have all the benefits that that accrues you.

“So it’s a big challenge to compete with them on any given day and we’ve done well to do that today and when we played them earlier in the season, but it’s a big challenge to try and compete with any of the teams above us in the league across 38 games.”

McKenna concedes the Blues are barring a miracle set for a return to the Championship next season.

“I think it’s certainly more than likely from the balance of probabilities,” he said. “Not that I don’t think that we can finish the season strongly and win quite a few of our games, but Wolves are a really strong side, as they showed today, and the chances of them losing all their games, for one, is really, really low.

“The likelihood is that we’re going to fall short of our ultimate dream at the end of the season.

“There will be plenty of time to talk about that and analyse that and reflect on the positives and the negatives throughout the course of the season, but for now I don’t see too much changing in the next seven games.

“We knew coming into this nine-game block that the balance of probabilities was really small but we committed as a group that we have to show the right values, show full commitment and try and deliver nine strong performances and get as many points as we can, and I think that will still be the objective when we go to our next training session.

“We also have Chelsea at Stamford Bridge, we have Arsenal here, after that we have Newcastle at St James’ Park, we have Everton after that, one of the last games at Goodison Park, we have some fantastic fixtures coming up for a club who haven’t been in the Premier League for 22 years.

“I know today is a big setback and it hurts but I also know that the players, supporters, everyone are going to muster up the energy to compete as well as we can in the last few games and try and finish the season as well as we can.”

Home form was a keystone of the Blues’ back-to-back promotions from League One and the Championship but this season only one of their four Premier League wins has come at Portman Road.

“I think different reasons,” McKenna said when asked why he thought that might have been the case. “I don’t think today was massively about that, to be honest, because the second half felt a little bit more like an away half.

“You can probably look at different games across the course of the season. We started our home games really, really well, Liverpool, Fulham, Aston Villa, we started really well in our home games.

“Then we had a few where we came up short in terms of being able to break teams down, the likes of maybe the Crystal Palace game or some other games in which we weren’t able to score enough goals.

“We’ve had a few where we’ve had some really energetic, high energy games but the other team have punished us more with quality, and today a really spirited, committed performance but it just hasn’t been enough to win.

“We’re talking about pretty small sample sizes, I’ve said that before. It’s pretty strange for us not to have more wins at home than away. I think across some of the games there are maybe one or two things we could do differently, but you’re talking about a small sample, tiny margins that have gone our way away from home that haven’t gone our way at home.

“I don’t think there’s always one outstanding reason and I think if there was we would have found it already and sorted it.”

TWTD

Bluearmy_81 added 18:48 - Apr 5 No one’s perfect and he’s made errors. Buying and then sticking with Muric for so long, probably his biggest…
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Blue_In_Boston added 18:49 - Apr 5 We've been found wanting in all areas this season, including in the dugout. That's not a criticism, more a case that successive promotions have elevated us to a level where we have looked out of our depth across the board.
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blueoutlook added 18:52 - Apr 5 We were down after losing to Southampton. That was a blo0dy awful result.
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Linkboy13 added 18:53 - Apr 5 I think the club should start sending out the season ticket reminders. I shall still be there like ive been for 60 years. As for those on here who constantly slag off the club players and management all i can say is youve seen the Premier league so ef off home.
8

AYACCA added 18:53 - Apr 5 It Is what it is, no need to cry over spilled milk. We'll come back stronger and ready. Until then just enjoy the ride
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Lightningboy added 19:17 - Apr 5 "We weren't able to maintain our energy levels"....? We've literally played 3 games in a month...it's their job to be fit...good job they're not out digging ditches.
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itfcskayman added 19:27 - Apr 5 No one expected us to go up in the first season in the champ and the gulf in class has just been too much for us. That being said we’ve made far too many basic errors this season(Kieran included). I still believe in the long term project that we have. Lots of potential there to fulfil. Yes today has been disappointing but let’s all remember the days where we were getting beaten by Barrow. We will be back stronger

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Mark added 19:33 - Apr 5 Relegation is always likely for promoted clubs, as Leicester and Southampton and finding too this season. It has made the Premier League rather dull this season, with no relegation scrap once again. The gulf in quality is huge. Let's get back to the Championship and put together a promotion bid. At least we won't have to put up with VAR!
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Bluewhiteboy added 19:36 - Apr 5 Hasn't covered himself in glory however after last season has more than enough credit. One thing is for sure he will have leaned more this season than the previous three. Think there are people in the club that deserve to go but not him.
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Bluearmy_81 added 19:40 - Apr 5 Hi Link boy, I think one of the problems with Ipswich is this “follow the town up or down” mentality I understand and agree (n part) with the sentiment but it’s almost as though failure is ok. I think that’s why Ipswich fans were so apathetic and ok with abject, chronic failure under Evans for so long. Most football fans demand success for their club and so they should. There’s nothing wrong with criticising players or management as a fan, fans have every entitlement to do that and conversely you do not have the right to have a go at fans for expressing their opinion to C which they are entitled…

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Stato added 19:47 - Apr 5 so many posters on here were building a statue for McKenna within a couple of months of him arriving. his first 6 months he couldn't lift us even 1 place up div 3 table. season 2 he couldn't lift us above a very average Plymouth team despite getting heavy support from the owners. last season I thought was a fantastic achievement to be fair but this season he has produced another par performance. I really hope he can deliver the championship title next season but that won't ever be ready for the prem if he continues to play Morsy & Hutchinson every week despite them being 2 of our poorest performers. I hope he has leaned from the numerous mistakes he has made this season but I'm not holding my breath.

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mistert added 19:54 - Apr 5 Respectfully have to disagree Bluearmy_81, in not saying we shouldn't ever question the management but staying as one was our only hope this season. If we were in the same position as Southampton then I would be more critical but the gulf is huge and the odds were always against us this season.
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tractorboy12341234 added 19:54 - Apr 5 McKenna is young and had all the cards stacked against him this season, he will learn a HELL of a LOT from this campaign, lets face it our marquee Jan signing was a lad on loan who couldn't get game time at Brighton. If we had stayed up it would have been a miracle.
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muhrensleftfoot added 20:16 - Apr 5 Disappointing but not unexpected. Loved the success of the last two seasons which somehow makes this season even more miserable. I’m looking forward to enjoying next season more. For sure we’ll see more than 1 home win
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Cakeman added 20:17 - Apr 5 Not the time for blaming anyone at the club for our poor results this season as everyone has tried exceptionally hard. Sadly the reality is there for all to see and that is we are not at this time good enough for the Premier. Most home games have seen us more than match the opposition for 20 or 30 minutes but then we slowly get deeper and deeper and ultimately concede goals with no hope of a comeback. I’m sure we shall return to the premier soon but when we do I hope we have learnt that a few more experienced giants are purchased or loaned. Our manager who has done remarkably well since he’s been with us also needs to learn and come up with a game plan for when we do take the lead. Personally I have not enjoyed this season and that’s not just down to our poor results. The Premier league is full of players who dive around as though they had been shot by a sniper. VAR continues to baffle me, this is slowly killing the game. Thankfully we shall not have that in The Championship.

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PortmanTerrorist added 20:18 - Apr 5 Keep thinking about a comment Mick Mills made during the week, that Hutchinson was never going to be given the time to develop in this League. Given the amount of young players who came in, tried, and mostly failed this season and you wonder if a season back in the Championship is almost necessary to give them the chance to make that development step and then come back stronger as a Team. And I do wonder if that was always the plan?! Regardless, despite so much going against us we have retained our class, dignity and philosophy.....and those of us that have supported for the long haul have (from what I can tell) stuck with the Team. The rest of you, we coped without you for years, and can cope with your comments now. Looking forward to some great final away games and to seeing us step forward again next season in whatever League that is, because this Club is still very much on the up again ! Thanks owners, Ashton, McKenna and the Team. COYB

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Goddyblue added 20:30 - Apr 5 Any one with half a football brain will know that we hit the prem about 2 seasons to early. The way the club had been building from the take over days in League 1, was to get players in ready for the championship. Those players and the rest of the team out performed all expectations (including the fans if we are honest) and got us into the Prem. Truth is we were not ready and had to try and assemble a strong enough squad within a very short amount of time.It was never going to be achievable to make up for the building seasons that we needed in the championship in 2 transfer windows. So for fans to be so hyper critical of our performances this season is in my opinion very shortsighted. Today was especially disappointing given the importance of the game, but also demonstrated the difference between a team that has had some time to build and one that hasn't". My hope is that we will be back in the Prem in 26/27 as a better stronger and more robust football team after a successful building season in the championship.

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Northstandveteran added 20:36 - Apr 5 VAR has one major flaw. It is still down to an individuals perspective. Rules have been changed to accommodate it's flaws such as the ridiculous handball rule that existed last season. Until technology can make every decision on the pitch it will be a failure. I happened to watch Leeds v Derby some time ago. Northern rivalry, under the lights, great atmosphere and end to end football without the constant stoppages and debating whether a toe was offside. And as much as I wanted us to stay up, I might even get to see a few games if the Manchester utd, Liverpool and Chelsea fans give up their season tickets so those of us who can't get to every game, now we're no longer 20 years old and just had our plums to think about. I do think being away from the top flight for so long, meant many of us didn't realise the huge gulf in quality. I had us down to beat the drop with a game or two to go. And I'm usually very cynical having followed Ipswich for over 40 years.

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Karlosfandangal added 20:49 - Apr 5 Town always expected to go down but we’re hoping to stay up. The players brought are for the future
3

ArnieM added 20:58 - Apr 5 Well that's us down. May as well dispense will all the loanees and play / look at players that will be with us next season and Ashton getting on the phone to clubs re targets over the summer. That said, I am SO frustrated by McKenna's lack of tactical nonce. Substitutions, and the timing of those Substitutions s are a real weakness of McKenna I'm afraid. He's repeating what he's done through League One and Championship seasons eg, changing the frontline, ( tired legs for fresh legs), but TACTICALLY, he changes nit a single thing. But this exchange of frontline players is happening at a much later point this season than previous seasons. What the hell does he expect the new frontline to achieve in 10 mins ( sometimes less for Hirst!). All the players will be cold mentally/ physically. In fact , their core body temp will only just be getting optimally raised by the time the full time whistle blows. It's pathetic,and he does it every game. Can anyone tell me what bloody use Philogene is? Or why he's asked to play where he plays when he does come on? To me it looks an utter waste of £20m Ashton refers to this season as "brutal." I think it's more a missed opportunity, by the manager refusing to drop Muric much sooner than he did. Insisting on using a really young forward line, that clearly has struggled to gel and make an impact when he had the likes of more senior players on the bench (Chaplin, Broadhead, Szmodics etc al). What an utter waste of a great opportunity to get more points on the board than we have done. The constant chopping / changing of players in the team (5-6 players per game). There's been so little continuity, and all of this is down to one man. McKenna. I'm not sure if he'll be here next season or nit. Part of me, almost doesn't care anymore.i will be gutted though, if we lose players like Hirst, Szmodics and Broadhead, through lack of game time. Delap will be sought after for sure. But I think he should think seriously about staying another season with us next season. He has much to learn and game development to be coached. Sitting on a top 5 PL club's bench will boost his bank balance but do little for a time minutes on the pitch. His choice though! Bring on next season, coz I've had my full of this so called "premier" league. It's s h i t and they can keep it along with the farcical VAR.

6

ArnieM added 21:09 - Apr 5 Portman Terrorist: i e been saying all season that is just about every player we've bought since being promoted to the PL are actually targets, intended for development in the championship ( THIS aeason). The club wasn't expecting to get promoted to the PL thus season. But we still pursued our original targets, Omari, Clarke, Philogene, Delap. Etc they're all roughly around 20/22yrs old. To my knowledge the club has provided a house in Woodbridge, where they all live together ( keeps an eye on them, and develops s srnse of belonging to the squad). These players are not the finished article by any means. They all develop at different rates. But I fo think McKenna has continued to pick these players at the expense of the more senior players who were a very good " team unit" last season and the season before. Its sl.ost been an experiment by McKenna this season. Yes we will undoubtedly benefit next season IF we can hold onto these young players..... but what happens if bigger clubs cherry pick these kids , AND the likes of Hirst, Szmodics, Chaplin, etc decide enough enough ( of not playing ) and decided to move on. I'd hardly blame them would you? Things could have so much different if McKenna had been more rounded in his approach

4

BuckieBlue added 21:15 - Apr 5 I would think pretty soon MA and the owners will be sitting down to take stock. I'm quietly confident that the owners will see us (and hence their long term plans) as having been ahead of schedule this season and hence be happy to carry on with financial backing and with KMcK in the dug out. Presumably we get a very healthy parachute payment this summer? (something we've never had to consider before!) There are various reactions from teams when they go down, as this season's relegated sides have shown, but that's for a summer discussion on another day!

2

bignics added 22:10 - Apr 5 I guess most of you commenting on here above are the same as those applauding when we got relegated to league one, I wonder if any of you go?! We were appalling today shockingly poor no one cared out there no one tried it was as if they were already relegated. Joke McKenna said “ I don’t think it was caution to the wind because nothing changed really in our shape or anything like that.” and there in lies the problem nothing changes the opposition know exactly what we are going to do for 90 minutes hence our poor season. McKenna out…..

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Leejames99 added 22:30 - Apr 5 I can't believe some fans are still blaming Muric and Phillogene, did you see Palmer mistake today? Keepers make mistakes and Muric only made 5 and since he stopped playing Walton and Palmer (not including Southampton game) have conceeded 30 goals in 10 games that 3 a game average,Phillogene has only played 9 mostly sub and still scored 3 goals. We have only got 5 points this year out of possible 36. Do fans think those signings from League 1 Mckennas Boys would of competed from league 1 all the way to Prem, if any were good enough for Prem they would of been playing there. What's so bad is just like Townsend the other night, if still here you will be purring over Phillogene and Clarke and slating Hutchinson too, we wpuldnt be in Prem without his goals. Those signings are all young lads and play for our club, if you so set on Morsy, Burns, Hirst, Chaplin playing again and think they will bring us back up straight away and spirit will get us through journey etc it maybe better to get season ticket at Colchester where most will surely end up. The board and Chairman need to look carefully now, all that money on new signings and kept them on bench, only team who didn't have a win. Look at scores and points with Muric in goal we were conceding 1.6 a game without him it's 3 and that's fact. It's not Phillogene or Muric fault it's Mck we don't owe him anything, he is too sentimental and attached to league 1 lads to say on TV fine margins again and worse that the players were tired is madness, of course a veteran midfielder is knackered but we left him on. It's a 25 man squad and he can't pick 11 fit footballers who can play 2 games in few days that's madness, and waffle no doubt about it. Mckenna on reported 6 million a year to make tough calls. He talks like they won a competition to play at Prem ground. Reset from league 1, new manager with new signings from this year plus few more, good league 1 clearout and start gelling the team for future. All managers went in bottom half. Should be no sentiment.

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terry_butchers_twin added 22:33 - Apr 5 bignics - McKenna out?? Are you serious?? Remember the much used expression “be careful what you wish for…….”
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