Big match over ruled: Ipswich town already a six pointer McKenna says…..
Ipswich Town manager Kieran McKenna says his side want to ‘change the narrative’ around what newly-promoted sides can achieve in the Premier League.
All three of those teams – Burnley, Sheffield United and Luton – went straight back down last season, while Leicester (2), Ipswich (2) and Southampton (0) are yet to register a win between them four games into this new campaign.
“Four games is a pretty small sample, I have to say,” said McKenna, when asked if the gap between the top and second tier was growing.
“I won’t speak about the other teams, but we’ve played two of the top teams, we’ve got a very new group and we’re fighting for every point. I’m not concerned about looking at the table and I don’t think I will be for a while.
“It’s more about how I feel we’re competing as a team, how we feel the team’s developing.
“The jump is big though. I think that’s felt by everyone. With the finances of the Premier League, even teams who can establish themselves at this level for one or two seasons, the level of player they can then bring in is high. So that makes it a really big jump for any team that comes into it, certainly for one like us who is coming into it for the first time in 22 years.
It’s a huge jump, no doubt about that, but it’s not one we’re afraid of. It’s one we’re enjoying the challenge of taking on. Can we can go and create a new narrative, as we have done over the last couple of years, about what’s possible? Let’s see if we can rewrite what’s possible as a double newly-promoted team.
“Outside narrative about newly-promoted teams, and things like that, honestly it’s not something we speak about as a group. It’s not something we can waste any energy on.
“With the three teams going down last season with not big points totals it was always going to be a narrative, but it’s not really of any interest to us. It’s about ourselves, our journey and doing the best things day-to-day. ”
Town are in the Premier League for the first time in 22 years, having recently spent four successive seasons in League One. By contrast, Leicester and Southampton had nine and 11 straight seasons in the top-flight respectively before dropping down and instantly bouncing back.
“I don’t want to spend too much time and energy thinking about the other clubs,
but I do think our position is different to theirs,” said McKenna.
“The expectations, from a realistic perspective, are different, because those are clubs who dropped out the Premier League for one season and kept the majority of their squad together. That is very different to a club who has spent as long out of the division as us.
“That’s not just about the playing squad, but in every single facet of the football club – the training ground, the infrastructure, the staffing.
“But I’m really proud of how we’ve approached it so far and how, as a football club, we’re rising to the challenge of trying to be competitive in this division. I think we’ve given a really good account of ourselves so far.”
Given the clear challenges that the three newly-promoted clubs face, tomorrow’s game between Ipswich and Southampton, at St Mary’s, has already been dubbed a ‘relegation six-pointer’ by some.
“I don’t really see it as that,” said McKenna. “To be honest it’s not a phrase that we’ve ever used across the last couple of seasons.
“You have 38 league games in the Premier League, 46 in the Championship and League One, and you try and be as competitive as you can in each one then see where you’re at come the end of the season.
“Every game in the Premier League is important to us, every game is vital, every game is a challenge, every game is a great opportunity – and this weekend is no different. We’re looing forward to it.”
Town host Aston Villa next weekend, then travel to West Ham before the first international break of the weekend.
Asked if it was important not to go too deep into the season without registering a win, McKenna replied: “You always want to get your first win as soon as possible. We’d have loved to have got it against Liverpool or Man City. You want to collect as many points as possible as you go along.
“We’re going to give our all to make that happen on Saturday, but we can’t guarantee a victory going into any game. We can only control all the things that give us the best chance of doing so.
“If we win on Saturday, fantastic, but there will still be an awful long way to go in the season. It would probably turn the narrative completely one way for us and the other way for the opponent, but in reality there would still be a lot of games to go.
“Then we’re playing a Champions League team at home the following weekend and that’s going to be another mammoth challenge to prepare for.
“It’s about sticking to our mantra of one game at a time.
“Our focus is only going to be on ourselves and the next challenge. Whichever way a game goes, we’ll try and learn from it. That’s served us pretty well so far and we think it will serve us well this year too.”
