Kieran McKenna, manager of Ipswich Town, was thrilled to see his tired team ‘find a performance’ in a 4-2 home win against Preston North End, which opened up an eight-point cushion on their third-placed Lancastrian visitors heading into the next international break.
Another high-scoring game at Portman Road as second and third in the Sky Bet Championship battled, but the Suffolk side never trailed.
Conor Chaplin’s soaring opener from a Leif Davis corner in the 18th minute was cancelled out by Mads Frokjaer-Jensen’s scruffy breakaway goal just before the half-hour mark.
However, in the 35th minute, a spectacular solo run and finish by full-back Brandon Willaims, who started from within his own half, put the Blues back ahead.
In the first minute of stoppage time, Nathan Broadhead converted a George Hirst header from close range after Cameron Burgess nodded Davis’ cross back across goal, giving Ipswich a 3-1 lead.
Substitute Ben Whiteman had cut the deficit to one goal seven minutes after the break, but McKenna’s replacements combined to give the killing fourth 12 minutes from time, with Kayden Jackson converting an Omari Hutchinson cross.
When asked if his team had found a way to score goals and win games despite not matching the performance levels of Tuesday night’s 3-0 triumph over Hull City, McKenna stated in his news conference: “I think that’s fair to say.”
“This is the seventh game in 21 days, and I believe all of them have been high-level games with no room for rest, certainly in the game, and very little time to rest in between.”
“Yes, there were parts of the performance that appeared that way, but on the other hand, we scored four goals, we could have scored more goals, and we found ways to score goals.”
“Two excellent set-pieces if you include the second phase, which I thought we executed really well for the third goal.” A fantastic individual goal, as well as substitutes pressuring the ball efficiently and scoring on the break.
“We did enough good things in the performance to score goals and, I believe, be good value for the four goals.” There were some errors in there, which I believe can be attributed to the fact that we weren’t at our best, but we found a way to win the game.”
“We didn’t execute everything, but we executed enough,” he continued.
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