Ipswich Town boss delivers defiant message after Watford stalemate and injury setback

Ipswich Town will be looking to take the positives out of Wednesday night's draw with Watford at Portman Road, despite missing the chance to move to the top of the league. Having seen Leicester City and Leeds United drop points on Tuesday night, Kieran McKenna's side knew that a win over the Hornets on Wednesday would be enough for them to move two points clear at the top of the division.

However, the Tractor Boys were held to a goalless draw by Tom Cleverley's improved Watford outfit and while that was enough to carry them back into the automatic promotion spots, it wasn't the response supporters had been hoping for following their defeat to Norwich City at the weekend.

Ipswich could find themselves two points adrift of the top two by the time they next kick a ball, with Leeds and Leicester both playing before they take on Middlesbrough on Saturday afternoon. McKenna, though, isn't focusing on anyone but Ipswich and their immediate opponents going into the final four games as he looks to lead the club back to the Premier League for the first time since 2002.

"We’re not thinking about anyone’s destiny, to be honest,” McKenna said after watching the stalemate in Suffolk. “Norwich are a strong side with really good players, Watford are a strong side with really good players. We want to win every game, we try and win every game, but we can never take that for granted.

“We still have to keep the perspective that we played that first half tonight against a strong Watford team with some players still from their Premier League squad, a deep and high quality squad and we’ve really, really dominated large aspects of that game.

“Our focus is just on the next game. Every game is really hard fought, every point is hard won. We’ve had to fight really hard tonight and we know it’s going to take a hell of an effort and a hell of a performance to get anything from Saturday as well.

“That’s where our focus is really, not on anyone else or the table, it’s just on trying to get ready for the next game. It certainly takes that for this group in this division, and they’ve done that really well.”

He added: “We take the positives from the performance, we take the big positive of the clean sheet and, of course, we take the point which are all hard-fought in the Championship, especially this time of the season.”

The game appeared to come at a price, too, as George Edmundson left the field in the second half with an ankle issue. The defender has been in out of the Ipswich fold this season but any absence at this stage of the season would still be considered a blow.

"He’s rolled his ankle," McKenna said. "He walked in to the dressing room, so that’s a positive, so hopefully that’s not going to be anything major. Same one as he injured last season? I don’t know."