Blues boss Kieran McKenna felt Town did enough to deserve their 2-1 victory over strugglers Oxford United at Portman Road, but admitted there were aspects of the game his team could have done better.

Top scorer Jaden Philogene’s ninth goal of the season saw the Blues into the lead, but on-loan Tottenham forward Will Lankshear levelled, before Chuba Akpom netted what proved to be the winning goal five minutes before half-time, his second for the club and his first at Portman Road.

“Of course, we’re happy to get the win and it’s come in a really, really busy week for everyone, so you have to appreciate it even more,” McKenna said.

“I thought we certainly did enough to win the game, but without doing everything that we probably wanted to do, to be honest.

“There was some good football played, some good moves through the pitch, but I didn’t think we had an edge to our performance to go and kill the game or guarantee the clean sheet.

“We’re a little bit frustrated by those things but you have to temper that with the fact that we’re in the middle of an incredibly busy schedule, not just this week and Christmas week, but probably since November, really.

“There are some challenges in there and I think you have to appreciate the three points, they don’t come for free, but also know that there were bits that we could have done better in the game and we want to keep striving for that.”

Asked if that’s inevitable at this time of year with the game the third of four in 10 days, McKenna added: “You have to find a balance to it, it’s not like you go into the game thinking, ‘oh well, we might not get everything that we want’. You want the performance, you want the result, you want it for 90 minutes.

“There are a lot of mitigating factors, but we don’t often hide behind those, especially internally, so we’ll keep a balanced view and it’s not like we’re going to sit around for three days reflecting on it.

“It’s three points, we’ll speak about it briefly in the morning and we’ll get ready for Portsmouth. That’s the phase that we’re in. We know we’re coming off a really busy schedule.

“I do think there were still some good bits in the performance but I didn’t think the game had the edge to it that we would want.

“But I’m pretty sure if you went to all the Championship games up and down the country today, I think you’d probably find a lot of the same things.”

The win coupled with Middlesbrough’s surprise 1-0 loss at Derby saw the Blues move up to second in the table.

“It doesn’t even register, it doesn’t bother me at the moment, to be honest,” McKenna insisted. “I said maybe if we’re in a good position on Sunday, maybe on Monday I’ll have a look and hopefully we’ll be in a good spot.

“We just need to focus on ourselves, that’s what we’ve done right the way through and we need to focus on ourselves and keep trying to pick up points, perform as well as we can, keep trying to improve and, in my opinion, that’s the only path for us.”

McKenna was pleased for striker Akpom, who made his first start for the club as a number nine since joining on loan from Ajax late in the transfer window.

“Good for him, forward players want to score and it was an important goal as well, an important moment in the game,” he said.

“Really frustrated by the goal we gave away, so it was important to score quickly and it was a really good combination and run from Darnell [Furlong] and a good assist and Chuba’s taken it really well, so it will be good for him.”

Quizzed on whether he was frustrated by the number of turnovers, the Northern Irishman reflected: “They were well set up to counter-attack and they were waiting in the middle of the pitch. I don’t think we turned the ball over loads and loads, but in a game like that when it feels like we’re the dominant team and it’s easy to have possession of the ball, every turnover feels like a big turnover.

“But I think in the first half there were only probably a handful of times they got the ball in our half and, of course, when they score from probably the first one, it makes everyone feel more tense for the rest of the game every time they do have those opportunities.

“We’re frustrated with the goal, frustrated with the chance that they had in the second half where they ran through much, much too easily, but other than that I didn’t think there were many threats and we defended their threats pretty well.”

On Philogene taking his tally for the season to nine, all at Portman Road, he added: “A good finish and everyone trusts him in those positions, he shows his quality in those positions.

“The team and the boys work hard to get him in those positions and to open up that space for him and he’s really, really clinical in those areas.”

McKenna also had praise for Jens Cajuste, the Sweden international having won the ball back as the U’s looked the break out of their final third following an earlier Town attack.

“That’s really important in games like this and we speak about it a lot,” he continued. “You have to sometimes risk the forward pass and one of your best opportunities is if you counter-press it really well and you try and win the ball quickly around the edge of their box.

“Then it’s a way against teams who are sitting deep and low against you to catch them when they are disrupted and trying to come out of their shape, and it’s a moment when it’s a really good opportunity to score.

“It was good to score a goal like that, I think it was a really good reaction from a few people around the ball, but a top duel from Jens and scoring those type of goals in these type of games is really important for us.”

In the second half Marcelino Nunez came closest to adding a third via a free-kick which seemed destined for the top corner until Oxford keeper Jamie Cumming saved superbly.

“A great strike and he was a bit unlucky with the one that got cut back to him as well, maybe could have done a little bit better to keep it low,” McKenna recalled.

“But he’s given us a lot and he’s one of them that’s played a lot of minutes as well and is doing a lot of running, so it was good to get him off a little bit earlier today and he’s playing well.”

Photo: TWTD