Ipswich Town manager Kieran McKenna says his players go into tomorrow lunchtime's home clash with Norwich City determined to end 14 years of East Anglian derby pain for the club's supporters.

The Blues haven't triumphed in this fixture since 2009, losing seven and drawing five of the subsequent 12 meetings before relegation to League One saw them separated from their bitter rivals for four years.

They're red hot favourites to end that run now though given McKenna's back-to-back promotion chasers have chalked up 100 points and 100 league goals during a fairytale 2023, while the Canaries find themselves sitting 11th in the standings. 

“As staff and players we want to be involved in big games, in full stadiums, with the outcome meaning a lot to the people that we care about - and this is one of them," said the Blues boss.

“This game has been mentioned a lot, in a nice way, since I first arrived here two years ago. It was mentioned from day one probably.  

“Until you get down here you don’t realise, one, how big and important Ipswich is in the county of Suffolk and how much interest and investment there is from the whole community in the football club, and, two, how much of a rivalry there is with Norwich. We’re all fully aware of that. 

“I don’t think we can say it’s an extra motivation, as such, because this team has shown that we’re 100% invested and focused in every game. But this would certainly be a brilliant game to go and win, that’s for sure."

With the Ipswich team coach set to be welcomed to the ground by thousands of fans tomorrow morning ahead of a 12.30pm kick-off, McKenna continued: “It’s an occasion to really cherish and enjoy, but we all know we’re only going to enjoy it, in the end, it if we get the result we want. We’ll do everything we can to get that for ourselves and the supporters. 

"We want to enjoy the extra edge, the extra atmosphere, but also we can’t lose sight of what’s got us to where we are. That means we need to stick our process, prepare as well as we can, respect the opposition and do everything we can to give ourselves the best possible chance of performing on the day."

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Since taking charge of Ipswich in December 2021, McKenna has helped end a number of negative records. Is this the time to tick off the biggest one of all? 

“Is it the biggest one of all? I don’t know," he replied. "Of course the derby match is huge. When was the club's last promotion to the Premier League though? 2000? That’s 20+ years ago, so that’s a big thing to tick off as well. 

“When a club of this stature and size has had a period of time with more negative momentum than positive momentum then you accumulate records that need to be fixed. We’ve enjoyed ticking a lot of those off.

"We know beating our nearest rivals tomorrow would be a massive thing for our supporters and we’d absolutely love to do that. We’re going to play them twice this year and we want to win both of them."

On Norwich, who have won four of their last six games to climb into the top half, McKenna said: “They’re in good form. It’s two of the form teams in the league. They’ve scored a lot of goals, I think they’ve scored the third most goals in the league, they create a lot of chances and they can give any team a lot of teams problems – they've done that against some of the best in the league. 

“We’ll show them due respect, as we do for every team, but beyond that it’s about us. It’s our home stadium. It’s for us to go out and implement our strengths and deliver a performance that the supporters can get right behind. We’ll go and attack the game."

Asked what his messaging had been to his players over the last couple of days, the Blues boss said: “We spoke very briefly on Wednesday morning about the context of the game and then we cracked on with our process and preparation as we normally do.

"This group have been together for a good amount of time now. During the second half of last season every game felt like it was the biggest game in decades. Every game was must win. Every game was massive. That feeling is pretty well ingrained in us and we’ve got strong leadership who have lived that."

Asked if he had a message for the club's fans going into the game, he replied: “The supporters have been fantastic and been a big, big part of the excellent home record that we’ve had. They turn up in their numbers, bring the noise, are vocal in their support when they see us trying to do the right things and make it as difficult as they can for the opposition.

"The other big bit is sticking together and behind the players whatever way the game flows. We’d love to go out tomorrow and everything goes our way and have another Exeter day (a 6-0 home win in April sealing promotion) where we score early, score loads and everything’s perfect - but football’s not always like that. 

“Whenever something in a game’s gone against us, everyone has always stuck together, stayed calm and given it everything they’ve got for 90 minutes. The players have done that, the fans have done, so let’s go and do that again tomorrow. Let’s give the best of ourselves as a football club and see where that gets us."