McKenna: The Good Thing is We're Talking About a Margin Not a Five-Goal Swing
Friday, 6th Dec 2024 17:11
Town boss Kieran McKenna says competing with much more established Premier League teams is no mean feat for a newly promoted team, but that the Blues need to find an extra gear in order to win games.
McKenna’s side suffered narrow 1-0 defeats to Nottingham Forest and Crystal Palace this week with the games having not too much in them, certainly up to the point when the opposition took the lead.
Despite picking up only one win in their first 14 matches following their return to the top flight, Town have been competitive in most of their games, drawing six.
The Blues haven’t been on the end of a really heavy defeat with, by contrast, Sheffield United, one of last year’s promoted sides, having been beaten 5-0 twice and 8-0 by this point in the season.
“We're competitive but we don't want to get credit for just competing in matches,” McKenna said. “We want to try and win, we want to try and dominate and all those things.
“But again, I would say that we can't underestimate the jump. The jump to the teams in the bottom third of this division is a huge jump from the teams at the top end of the Championship, a huge jump from what we faced last year.
“So to compete every week at the moment, to be in almost every game, the last two games we're disappointed with. We want to find an extra gear, we’re trying to improve, develop the team, find solutions.
“But we're also bang in games with teams who are a lot further down the line on their journey than us. So to do that, although it isn't always evident, the team and the players are doing some good things.
“We're competing and that's not easy to do. You look at games every week and there are games that are opening up by big margins this season, last season, every season.
“At the moment, we're managing to not do that. But we also know that to win games, we've got to find an extra margin. But the good thing is, even on Tuesday night, I think we're talking about a margin, we’re not talking about reversing a five-goal swing.
“We're talking about the stroke of half-time when Harry Clarke has the header from three yards out. It hits Dean Henderson on the midriff on the goal-line and falls maybe three inches from Liam Delap volleying it into the net.
“Then we're going in at half-time saying it was a really solid performance, we’ve limited Crystal Palace's very good players to not very much, both teams were very well organised and cancelled each other out. But we're a margin away from going in 1-0 at half-time and saying it was a really solid half.
“We're trying to turn margins in our favour. We're not trying to turn a huge gulf in our favour. To be in that position is something. It's not where we want to be, but it's a step towards getting to where we want to be.”
McKenna has repeatedly said that his team will develop over the course of the season as the players from League One and the Championship find their feet in the division and the new recruits settle into his way of playing.
“I think so,” he said. “And that doesn't always come linear, it's not like you can say, ‘Well, are we better now than we were two weeks ago?’ Of course, every game is different.
“Every stage of the season is different. Injuries have probably stopped us from building the consistency that we would have wanted at times. But we need to keep on that path.
“I know after we've played 14 games it's easy for people to say ‘They can't still be talking about improving!’, but that’s the reality of the team.
“For example, the other night Jacob Greaves is coming back and he's maybe played six or seven Premier League games and hasn't played for six weeks.
“Jack Clarke has made maybe two or three Premier League starts and he's coming into a game for the first time. He's not going to be at his maximum capacity where he could be in six months, 12 months, two years, in four years' time.
“We've got some really good players. Liam Delap playing Saturday and Tuesday in the Premier League for the first time is not the same as [Palace’s Jean-Philippe] Mateta playing Premier League Saturday and Tuesday, it’s not.
“The players aren't where they're going to be. We want to help them with that development, we want to accelerate them with that development as much as possible.
“And we've got to try and do that over the course of the season and trust that if we do that, then we'll all be better as a staff, as a group of players and as a club in three months’ and six months’ time.
“And hopefully that will mean we'll have some really good results and really good days on the way, and hopefully plenty of points in the table.”
TWTD
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FrimleyBlue added 17:17 - Dec 6Whilst true. Burgess had been sold and playing well so maybe there wasn't a need to play the cb who hadn't played for 6 weeks. Or the 2nd top goal scorer sat on the bench to make way for a player who's barely started.
Win games. Experiment after.||
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