Ipswich Town 1-1 Fleetwood Town: Kieran McKenna's reaction

The below-par Blues looked set to top the League One table after leading through Luke Woolfenden's early close-range finish at a corner. 

But substitute Cian Hayes saw a 25-yard shot deflect off the head of Cameron Burgess deep into stoppage-time and loop in off the post.

"Could I see it coming? No," said McKenna, whose side have now dropped 11 points on home soil this season. 

"Second half we worked ever so hard. Of course we can play much, much better than we did, but on the other hand there was a grit and resilience about us to see the game out.

"We gave away so little chances. Of course they had the header from the set play (Joe Garner seeing a chance cleared off the line), but other than that I thought we were solid and they didn't look like scoring.

"It's a long-range deflected goal. It's a lucky goal. There's no two ways about it.

"I thought it was unfortunate and undeserved in terms of the effort the players put in.

"It wasn't coming in terms of the flow of the game. But in terms of the flow of the season it probably was because we've had quite a few things go against us very late in games.

"The only way we can take away that feeling is by getting some more games over the line."

The Northern Irishman, who has now been in charge of Town for 50 matches, continued: "Look, to be honest, if the game had finished on 93 minutes then I would have said I enjoyed it. It was a feisty game, they came to play, they came to compete.

"We played well in bits. Second half we didn't play well, but you can't play well for every half of every game.

"We've spoken about that lots. We're not always going to be perfect, we know that. Sometimes we have to be tough and be resilient and I thought we were that tonight. I thought we'd done enough to earn a gritty win.

"I'm disappointed because I thought we put a lot into the game."

Fleetwood players celebrated wildly at the end, with former Blues loanee Josh Earl dismissed for making an obscene gesture towards the crowd.

"I've no interest in that to be honest," said McKenna. "It doesn't make any difference to us. I heard the officials saying that's what happened. But I've no interest in it."

Asked if missing out on the chance to go top added salt to the wounds, the Blues boss said: "No. Honestly it doesn't. I wouldn't have felt any different had we won or drew and Plymouth (who lost at home to Port Vale) had won. 

"It's a gutting result because of a very fortunate late winner that has completely changed the narrative and the emotion associated with Ipswich.

"Results of other teams, at this stage, doesn't interest me too much."

With Town having scored three goals in their last four home league games, McKenna said: "In this spell of home games we need to score more goals. We've had plenty of play, plenty of opportunities, plenty of chances and the return hasn't been good enough for that. We know that, the players know that. People don't miss on purpose. We need to keep working to improve."

Asked if his team should have had a penalty, after it went 1-1, when Kayden Jackson appeared to be shoved over in the box, McKenna said: "I haven't seen it back, but it looked like a penalty at the time. He was in front of the defender and the defender barged in front.

"I have seen the one on Cameron Burgess in the first half. I thought it was ridiculous. He got rugby tackled from behind.

"I'm really, really, really reticent to talk about referees but at some stage you're just hoping that there's going to be some levelling up because in every game there has been two or three big, big decisions to be made here and the referees seem reluctant to make them outside of the general performance of the game.

"I thought we were good for at least one penalty. That continues to be a theme. Probably the only time we've had penalties is when I spoke about it after Barnsley.

"I don't want to speak about referees, but I'd hope that things are given without managers having to shout and holler from the sidelines and publicly."