Ipswich Town boss Kieran McKenna makes Leeds United admission with prediction and team hope

Fourth-placed Ipswich approached Wednesday night’s Championship clash at Millwall having savoured victory in just one of their last nine league games but McKenna’s side closed back to within three points of second-placed Leeds with an impressive 4-0 success at The Den.

The Tractor Boys also have a game in hand but Daniel Farke’s Whites possess a much better goal difference of plus 33 compared to Ipswich’s plus 19. Third-placed Southampton, meanwhile, are now just a point above Ipswich on the same amount of games played with a plus 23 goal difference, four goals better than Ipswich’s.

But Ipswich’s goal difference was significantly boosted with a resounding success at Milllwall that McKenna felt was overdue from his side following a spate of missed chances in recent games. Speaking post match, McKenna made an admission about the quality of Leeds, declaring his view that his side have only struggled to compete in December’s 4-0 thumping at Elland Road.

But the Ipswich boss predicted that there was more to come from his side in the promotion-chase run-in, particularly as January recruits Kieffer Moore, Jeremy Sarmiento, Ail Al-Hamadi and Lewis Travis continue to bed in.

"I think we were long due a night like that to be honest," said McKenna, as quoted by the East Anglian Times. "Statistically, over the last nine games we've had more shots and had less against, and had more xG (expected goals) and less (xG) against, than we had in the first nine games of the season. Sometimes football works like that. I think we were long overdue a night where things went our way. We've earned that, not just tonight but with some good performances in recent weeks."

Pressed on the result potentially breathing new life into his side's automatic promotion push, the Ipswich boss reasoned: "What's really important to me is that when we're not winning week-in, week-out during a phase of the season when we had a of injuries, we're trying to integrate new players, we've had some things go against us, that everyone in the building has stayed really calm and kept full belief in how we work. We've just stayed focused on the performances and our processes.

"We've been competitive in every game and that's not easy to do in the Championship. Maybe the Leeds game is the only one that opened up really, other than that we've been competitive across 31 games against some really, really good sides. I sometimes take more pride in the culture that we've built when things don't go our way. I know we'll all keep pulling in the same direction and that if we keep doing the right things then good things will come our way."

Speaking to Sky Sports, McKenna was asked if he felt there was more to come from his team and reasoned: "I do. I still think we can improve. It's not a new group again but when you add four players into a really settled group and they are finding themselves and you haven't got too much training time because we had so many games, I still think we can push on again and we can improve. We can improve on what we have done tonight and that will be the focus over the next couple of months."