| Queens Park Rangers 1 v 4 Ipswich Town EFL Championship Saturday, 1st November 2025 Kick-off 15:00 |  |
McKenna: The Goals Were the Real Highlight Saturday, 1st Nov 2025 18:37 Boss Kieran McKenna felt the Blues’ four goals were the highlight of his side’s 4-1 victory at QPR. George Hirst finished two well-worked team goals, to take his total for the season to five, now joint-top scorer with Jaden Philogene and Jack Clarke, while Marcelino Nunez bagged two stunning free-kicks, his first goals for the club since his summer move from Norwich. “A good win, “McKenna said. “The goals were the real highlight. Of course, that’s obviously the case in football, but today even more so. “Two terrific team goals, really well worked, things that we’re working on and continue to work on, so loads to build on from them. “And two brilliant individual goals. Of course, no goal in football is 100 per cent individual because you have to win the free-kicks in those areas, but when Marcelino steps up and does that twice in quick succession, it has a massive impact on the result. “Four brilliant goals for the supporters to enjoy away from home, some good football played, especially when we got the goals and we’d got the confidence in the margin then. We controlled the game really well once we’d got a few goals ahead. “Lessons to learn, certainly the period after we scored early, we can do better to really push on in the game. “It’s the first time we’ve had the first goal away from home, so each situation is new for this team at the moment and how we push on, execute well, stay concentrated, stay really consistent with our actions. ‘We became a little bit erratic in that phase and the game became a little bit open. Lessons to learn, things to improve, but certainly lots of positives.” McKenna was asked whether Hirst’s confidence had taken a bit of a dip with goals not having come freely in the opening months of the campaign following a very promising pre-season. Last week, the Scotland international was on the end of a few jeers from the home support during the 1-0 win against the Baggies. “I think it’s a good boost for him,” McKenna continued. “George manages to stay pretty confident. I’ve been happy with the work that he’s been given to the team, to be honest. “There were a few bits last week that I didn’t love in the game from the crowd, but he’s working really, really well and he’s giving a lot to the team. “His role, he has different teammates to learn about and adapt to now, a slightly different system to learn and adapt to those people around him. He always gives us a good focal point when he runs hard for the team. “When he runs hard for the team and he gives us leadership and he puts himself about, I’ll always take that as a really good base. “Of course, some days you can be a little bit better in your execution, some days a little bit worse, but when he’s giving what he can give to the team, he’s a helluva focal point to help the team. “Big positive for him today. He’s been getting chances across most of the season. Last weekend was actually probably the first game where he didn’t really have any sniffs at goal. “But we spoke this week about sticking at it, getting in the right positions from the crosses and giving everything that he can to the team and trusting the goals will came, and really happy they did for him today.” Had he pulled him aside to give him assurance? “He’s a strong man. I had a good chat with him last night in the hotel. We speak a lot. He knows he’s got my trust. “He’s a strong man, he’s had a fantastic experience here at the club, a fantastic relationship with everyone, has showed a real desire to stay here and fight for his position through each season when we’ve had promotions, a real desire to stay here this year and fight for his position knowing that other people would come in. Real commitment to the cause and to the club. “He hasn’t needed any picking up or anything like that, he knows he’s got an important role in the squad as a leader within the squad now. Some games will go your way, some not, but it’s a long season and he’s someone who we have a lot of trust in.” Regarding Nunez’s free-kicks, McKenna added: “He’s a brilliant set-piece-taker, there’s no doubt about it and he’s right up there with the best that I’ve worked with and I’ve worked with one or two really good ones. “And the base is always practise for the top ones and he’s a top one and he practises as much as anyone I’ve seen. Repetition, studies it, cares about it, wants to be the best set-piece-taker he can be. “It’s no coincidence and you certainly feel like it’s actually a chance when he gets a free-kick in that area and he’s executed two brilliant ones today. Really happy for him and the boys are happy for him downstairs.” Town scored in the 68th second of each half and McKenna was especially pleased to take the lead on the road for the first time this season. “Really important, we haven’t had the first goal in an away game yet and we’ve had lots of chances to get one, so it was nice to get the one today,” he said. “Even though we didn’t push on quite as well as we would have hoped to, it’s still nice to get that first goal because it gives you at least a margin in the game. “And then we got into half-time, knowing that we showed some good stability at the end of the first half, we didn’t let the game go crazy, we didn’t let it get completely away from us when we conceded the goal. We managed to re-stabilise and get to half-time knowing that we could push on in the second half. “I don’t think anybody could think that they expected Marcelino to do that just after kick-off, but, of course, that was a big moment and it gave us the confidence to really kick-on in the second half. “I think we’ve generally been starting games well, we haven’t got the first goal often enough, some of that’s our execution, some of it’s luck and things inevitably are going to go your way a bit more often if you keep creating more chances than the opponent in the first half of games. Nice to get that first goal today and it’s almost like we did it twice.” Did the reaction to conceding show lessons learned from the 3-0 home defeat to Charlton 11 days ago? “Let’s hope so,” he said. “I felt coming out of that week and into the West Brom game that it could be a really important week for us and has been something that we’ve reinforced again this week. “Again, I liked a lot of things about the West Brom game, about how we can through that. “We’re a long way off perfect, we know that. We need to keep improving but we need to keep learning and growing as a group. “It is still a really new group, it’s the first time we’ve scored the first goal away from home. These are all experiences. “I’ve spoken about it enough, but there’s definitely a big bit from the Charlton game and probably from some of the other games, Middlesbrough was similar in terms of when we get a setback how we stay composed, reorganise, trust our structure, keep our discipline, keep our control and trust that we have the quality, the intensity and the structure to win games if we manage to stay in them. “I think we did that pretty well today after their goal. I can’t remember them having too many other chances after that between the goal and half-time and I think away from home when you concede a goal like that it can get away from you really, really quickly and we didn’t let it today. And then you give yourself a chance to push on and try and win the second half.”
Photo: TWTD Please report offensive, libellous or inappropriate posts by using the links provided.
You need to login in order to post your comments |
   Blogs 297 bloggersIpswich Town Polls[ Vote here ] |
