Following his opening day 2-1 win over us yesterday, Ipswich manager, Kieran McKenna left the Stadium Of Light delighted with how his team performed despite a late push from the lads to find an equaliser with ten men.
SET THE TONE
"We spoke before the game about the application and setting the tone for how we're going to be. We set the tone for how we're going to work and how hard we're going to have to work. It was a big challenge, a very strong opponent in front of a full house. It took every ounce of effort.”
GREW INTO IT
"We know we're going to have defend more this season. We want to press more aggressively than we managed to do in the first half here. I think the level of the game and the opponent was a big step up and I think the players felt that in the first 20 minutes. We weren't able to break their press as well as we wanted and we weren't able to find the extra step to get enough pressure on the ball. We made a change tactically to be more aggressive as the half went on. We know we're going to have defend at times at this level, but we also know that we can show bits of what we did today. We were brave with our build up, we were patient and tried to do the right things to find the spare player. We started to do that as the half went on and at the start of the second half, and that enabled us to get a foothold in the game.”
NAIL BITING FINISH
"We knew at the end it was going to be tough, the third goal was going to be key. At a ground like this, two-nil is never safe. We could have done better on some counterattacks, we could have killed the game off and so it had to be bodies on the line at the end. We had to rely on some good goalkeeping, some good defending and a little bit of luck to get over the line at the end."
