Despite not being at their best, Kieran McKenna felt his Ipswich Town side’s performance was worthy of a point during yesterday’s 1-0 defeat to Nottingham Forest.
As it was, a penalty early in the second half from former Town loanee Chris Wood was enough to separate the two teams at the City Ground.
However, McKenna believes that Forest could have had few complaints had the encounter ended all square.
Ipswich Town boss Kieran McKenna. Picture: Barry Goodwin
He said: “We didn’t work the ball well enough. We had some momentum, some pressure (in the last 10 minutes). They’re really hard to create clear chances against in that phase especially from crosses, they went five at the back, they’ve got big centre-halves, who defend the frame of the goal well.
“So it’s not easy to create big chances, but we didn’t sustain the pressure well enough, work the ball to good enough areas to consistently put pressure on their goal. I think that last part of the game, we can work towards doing a bit better on.”
“We’re frustrated because we wanted to get something from the game. I think on the balance of play, I think (if it had been) a draw, no one could have had any complaints.
“I don’t think we can say we did enough to win the game, but I think it was competitive enough certainly that a draw would have been an even result.
“We were competitive in the first half, we were a threat, I don’t think we hit our absolute best level, but you can’t do that all the time and, as I said, it wasn’t a fantastically high quality game.
“But we were right there in the game looking a threat and defending with pretty good organisation after the first few minutes.
“We feel like we’re in games and we’re competing and to do that you have to be doing some things well.
“But we also know that to win games and to win games consistently, there’s another step to take and we didn’t manage to make that step today.”
In addition to the defeat, which saw the Blues drop one place to 19th, Town lost Axel Tuanzebe to an injury in the second half, one which could keep the defender out for a little while.
“Hamstring,” McKenna said when asked about the injury. “No idea of the severity of that yet.”
Quizzed on centre-half Jacob Greaves, who is fit again after his hamstring injury, not being included among the subs, McKenna said: “It’s rare that we put centre-halves on the bench and anyone who follows us knows that. Over the long course of the season, we aim to have as many attacking subs and subs with versatility as we can on the bench.”