Ipswich Town: Kieran McKenna's first 100 league games analysed

Kieran McKenna's win rate in the league is 57%. (Image: PA Images)

INCREDIBLE NUMBERS 

Let’s start with the headline numbers. P100 W57 D31 L12 F189 A87 GD +102 Pts 202/300. 

Here's more of a breakdown... 

21/22 (League One): P23 W11 D8 L4 F29 A12 Pts 41/69 

22/23 (League One): P46 W28 D14 L4 F101 A35 Pts 98/138 

23/24 (Championship): P31 W18 D9 L4 F59 A40 Pts 63/93 

Home: P49 W33 D13 L3 F113 A40 Pts 112/147

Away: P51 W24 D18 L9 F76 A47 Pts 90/153

Luke Woolfenden (left) has started the most league games under Kieran McKenna. (Image: © Copyright Stephen Waller)

IMPROVING PLAYERS 

McKenna has started 43 different players across his 100 league games and less than half of them (20) have been his signings.  

Eight players have started more than half the century - Luke Woolfenden (91), Sam Morsy (91), Wes Burns (87), Conor Chaplin (85), Leif Davis (71), Christian Walton (68), Cameron Burgess (61) and Janoi Donacien (55) - with left-back Davis the only one of those he brought into the club. 

In total, 68% of the league starts have been made by players the Northern Irishman inherited when taking the job in December 2021. 

That speaks volumes of McKenna’s ability to improve what he’s got through detailed coaching, well thought-out team chemistry and positive man-management.  

For me, Cameron Burgess, who had to bide his time before breaking into the team, has made the biggest improvement. 

Left-back assist machine Leif Davis has been the most important of Kieran McKenna's signings. (Image: Pagepix Ltd)

EVOLVING TACTICS 

McKenna has certainly delivered on his promise to deliver 'positive, aggressive, balanced and adaptable' football with ‘young, hungry, technical and athletic’ players. 

The underlying principles of building from the back have always been there. Substitutions are usually like-for-like. Rather than having a drastic Plan B the motto has always been to trust in the process. That’s not to say there haven’t been moments of flexibility though. 

The back end of the 21/22 season saw Town keep loads of clean sheets, but struggle to score many. The result was too many draws as the Blues finished 11th in League One. 

Once McKenna had solved the troublesome left-back position with the acquisition of Davis, the system was able to subtly evolve from the solid base shape of a 3-4-2-1 to a more attack-minded (yet fluid) 4-2-3-1. The goals started to flow. 

Midway through the 22/23 season, when teams started to park the bus and deploy spoiling tactics, McKenna used the January transfer window to add some different attributes to his team and found the solutions. The play was a little bit more direct during that incredible promotion charge. 

A similar narrative is unfolding this season. After the Blues initially took the Championship by surprise, teams started to show a lot more respect. Again, January signings have provided some different strings to the bow.

One of Town's 12 league defeats under McKenna came in farcical fog conditions at Oxford United. (Image: Pagepix Ltd)

TWELVE DEFEATS! 

For me, the most remarkable stat of all is that Town have only lost 12 out of 100 league games under McKenna. 

Two of those came in his first two weeks in the job – at Bolton (2-0) and Sheffield Wednesday (1-0). Those were used as big learning experiences.  

The next two – against Cambridge (0-1 at home) and Rotherham (1-0 away) – came late on in that campaign when play-off hopes had been extinguished and the team was being experimented with a little. 

Plymouth away in September 2022 could easily have ended in a draw given Christian Walton’s dramatic late header hit the bar. Town deserved something from that one. 

The 1-0 home loss to Lincoln in October 2022 was a bit of freak result. Town had 33 shots on goal in that game but couldn’t score. It was a similar story in the 1-0 loss at Wycombe two months later. 

The 2-1 loss at Oxford in January 2023 obviously comes with a major asterisk given the farcical fog that should have seen that game abandoned. 

This season, the Blues have lost just four league games – twice to a Leeds side that has just dropped down from the Premier League, away to a West Brom side packed with Championship experience (no disgrace in any of those) and also at Preston (when a draw was almost salvaged after the home side’s two early goals were wrongly allowed to stand). 

One hundred games and just three defeats by more than a single goal. That’s proof of how relentlessly competitive McKenna’s teams have been. 

Ipswich Town players react at the end of a dramatic 4-4 draw at Charlton in October 2022. (Image: Page Pix)

FRUSTRATING DRAWS 

The biggest frustrations have probably come from draws rather than defeats. 

The last-gasp equaliser conceded at Oxford in March 2022 was effectively the nail in the coffin when it came to finishing in the top-six. That stung, as did letting a two-goal lead slip during a crazy stoppage-time spell at Charlton in October 2022. 

The goalless draw at Bristol Rovers on Valentine’s Day last year sparked concerns that the wheels were coming off a promotion push. That was just because too many old wounds were still raw. 

Missing out on the league title by drawing at Fleetwood on the final day of the season was no more than a mild disappointment. The job was done. 

This season’s biggest frustration, in truth, was probably dominating Norwich at Portman Road but still not being able to end that 14-year winless run in the East Anglian derby. 

Having so few set-backs has increasingly meant that every minor bump in the road has felt more seismic. It’s certainly important to keep perspective.  

Ipswich Town players celebrate securing League One promotion following a 6-0 demolition of Exeter City. (Image: PA)

THE HIGHS 

On nine occasions, Town have won by four goals or more. The pick of those wins has to be the 6-0 demolition of Exeter which clinched promotion last April. Everything about that day was magical. 

For me, though, the 3-0 midweek victory at Barnsley a few days earlier topped that. When George Hirst ran clear to make it 2-0 just before the break, that’s when we all knew that four years in League One was over. I still get goosebumps thinking about that now. 

The 4-0 win at Gillingham in only McKenna’s second game sticks in the mind. That swashbuckling performance gave the first tantalising glimpse of what was to come. 

Chaplin’s long-awaited hat-trick against Charlton, plus the wins at Bolton, Derby and Peterborough on the charge to promotion will also live long in the memory. 

This season, the pick of the Portman Road goalfests has got to be the 3-0 midweek win against Hull. After the Tigers were mauled, Ed Sheeran appeared in the dressing room for a singsong. What a night that was.

Winning on the opening day at Sunderland, Chaplin sending the away end wild at QPR, going toe-to-toe with Leeds in a seven-goal thriller, Harry Clarke scoring for his boyhood club against Blackburn, Wes Burns’ wonderous trivela goal against Coventry, Sam Morsy’s late winner at Watford, two late levellers against Leicester, Ali Al-Hamadi putting the icing on the cake at Millwall in midweek... To be honest, there are far too many moments to list in this section. 

Here’s to the next 100!