Ipswich Town manager Kieran McKenna was delighted to see his team emerge from a game of 'aggressive chaos' with all three points tonight.
The Blues were under the cosh for much of the first half at Burton Albion, but went on to secure a 1-0 win courtesy of Marcus Harness' crisp finish on the hour mark.
"It's a really good result from a very different type of game," said McKenna, whose side remain top of the League One table after claiming 10 points from the opening four games.
"I think Burton are going to take a lot of points off teams with the aggression and directness they play with, especially on Tuesday nights.
"The first half was chaos. We didn't manage to get any structure or order to the game. But we showed spirit, dug in and managed to keep it out our net.
"Second half I thought the performance went up a gear. We managed to address a few details we spoke about at half-time. We linked better and opened our angles.
"We were good value for the goal and, although we needed a really good save from Christian (Walton), I thought it was a really hard won and deserved three points."
He continued: "I think tonight just highlights how difficult this league is and how you can't take anything for granted.
"We have no divine right to win football matches. We're going to have to battle every week. Saturday (3-0 home win against MK Dons) was a footballing game at home and tonight was a game away from home against a team who wanted to make it aggressive chaos. They did that very, very well and credit to them for that.
"To come through it 1-0 is, in many ways, as pleasing as a controlled and smooth 3-0 win.
"We're going to face this a lot this season. This is the first time we've had a game like this in a while. You can't replicate these sort of games in pre-season and our opening three opponents, Bolton, Forest Green and MK Dons, were different types of teams. You're probably going back to the depths of last winter for the last time we played a game like this, so that first half hit us in the face a bit.
"It took us a while to adjust, some fundamentals we didn't get right, but we improved as the game went on.
"It's a good learning curve for us to get through early in the season."
Meanwhile, McKenna revealed why Wes Burns dropped out of the matchday 18.
"He's got a little niggle that he picked up in the warm-up on Saturday but managed to play through," said the Blues boss. "It's nothing major. We'll see how he is for Saturday (at Shrewsbury)."
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