Ipswich clean sheet delights Kieran McKenna

Posted Saturday, November 19, 2022 by PA

Kieran McKenna praised his side’s defending as Ipswich’s League One promotion charge gathered momentum with a 2-0 win at Exeter.

Freddie Ladapo put the Tractor Boys in front in the 11th minute before Marcus Harness ended a seven-game goal drought in the second half to seal a seventh away win of the season.

Ipswich are also unbeaten in six games in all competitions but it was a first clean sheet in four league outings that pleased their manager.

“To keep a clean sheet was a big part of it,” McKenna said.

“We really dialled into their threats. We wanted to defend on shape a fair bit and be compact.

“We wanted that feeling of stability as we thought with our quality on the ball, we would score. I am really pleased with the clean sheet.

“It was a good, solid away performance where we controlled the game with and without the ball. There were lots of positives to take.

“We had good organisation and gave away very few chances. I was pleased with our game management.”

McKenna was delighted to see Harness get his reward for a tireless performance with a goal from a set-piece after he headed home Leif Davis’ corner.

The Ipswich chief added: “I am delighted for Marcus, he is such a good finisher.

“We identified areas we were not so strong in and recruited to help those areas as well as coaching and developing the players.

“Set-pieces are something we spoke about in the week, as it is something we can be strong at. It was nice to get a goal from a set-piece.

“We worked on them right from pre-season and now we need to make it a bigger part of our working week. The buy-in is important and we are getting regards.

“There is a long way to go and we want to keep on improving.”

Exeter had just one shot on target as they slipped to their fourth home defeat of the season.

Grecians manager Gary Caldwell said: “We cannot be one, two per cent off against these top teams.

“We have to be bang at it, and I felt the intensity of our press, our touch and our quality when we won the ball back was not quite there. And if it is not quite there, you are not going to win these games.

“They defended really deep compared to how they have been, so they showed us a lot of respect to change their game plan.

“They really packed out the defence and when we attacked, their whole team was behind the ball. That is when we have to find solutions to break them down and we didn’t quite have the quality to do that.

“It is never nice to lose goals, and it is even worse when it is set-piece goal as we put a lot of work in to be organised and stop those threats. At 1-0 you are always in the game, at 2-0 it feels like a big ask.”