Ipswich Town boss Kieran McKenna has stressed the need to ‘keep the tension out of the performance’ in their crunch clash against Leicester City at Portman Road.
The Blues were promoted to the Premier League alongside the Foxes last season, with just three places and five points separating the two sides after nine games.
McKenna is aware that the game has built up externally as a crucial game for Town, and while he doesn’t necessarily agree with the ‘must win’ tagline that some have used, he knows the importance of picking up results against teams who are expected to finish towards the bottom of the table.
“We know every game is important,” he said. “The term ‘must win’ gets used, but it doesn’t really mean anything because if we don’t win on Saturday, we’ll try our very best to win against Tottenham. There’s a lot of games left in the season.
“We’ll try our best to perform as well as we can. That’s always key when you’re in games that are built up a bit more because you’re playing a team in close proximity to you in the league.
“Of course, with us and Leicester last year, it was different positions in the league, a different context in that everyone expected them to be at the top end of the division. Not many people expected us to be.
“This is a different context, with both teams at the bottom end of the division. That’s natural from where we’re coming from.
“It’s another game to look forward to. We have to embrace these games, we fought so hard to get into this league.
“We were always going to have games against other teams who are in the bottom end of the division that are going to be built up, but the key is to keep the tension out of the performance, perform as well as we can and fight with everything we’ve got for the points.
“That’s all we can do and that’s what we’re going to try and do.”
Asked about the Foxes’ journey to this point, McKenna highlighted the fact that their squad has a lot of Premier League and European experience, which has given them an advantage over Ipswich heading into the campaign.
“Three seasons ago, they were in European competitions. Their story is their story, but I think it was a big surprise for them to be relegated in the first place given where they’d been in previous seasons.
“They’ve had one season in the Championship and now they’re back in the division where they’ve been for a decade or however many years it is.
“We know, and we’ve spoken about it before, that we’re in a league of one in some aspects this season, when you look at Southampton’s last decade as well.
“It is what it is. We go out onto the pitch every weekend with the best team we can put out and the best preparation we can to show our identity, our style and our spirit to fight for the points.”
Ipswich, of course, know Leicester and their players quite well, but Enzo Maresca is know longer in charge. The Foxes are managed by Steve Cooper, who McKenna knows well, but the Town boss doesn’t believe that there have been too many significant changes to their approach under him.
“Obviously he tried to build on what they did last year. They build through the goalkeeper really, really well. They build through the double pivot really, really well. They’ve got different ways to rotate into a 3-2-5 when they’ve got the ball – they’ve done it in different ways over the course of the season.
“Most of their patterns, key movements, positional traits and ways that they attack the box are very similar to what they did last year. There’s more similarities.
“Defensively – I know Steve well – I’d say they’re more zonal this year. Leicester last year with Enzo were a bit more man-to-man orientated. This year, they’re more zonal and a bit more compact in their box.
“Every defensive strategy has its benefits, every defensive strategy opens up opportunities. They’re still a good side with lots of experienced, Premier League players, and they added more experienced players over the summer. They added a good manager.
“They’ll be looking to come here, get something from the game and perform well. We’re looking to make sure that our performance is of the highest level it can possibly be to get something from the game for ourselves.”
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