Ipswich Town manager Kieran McKenna hit out at Portsmouth counterpart Danny Cowley following his side's 3-2 home win against this afternoon.

Marcus Harness and Freddie Ladapo twice gave Town the lead, twice the Blues were pegged back by Colby Bishop penalties before Wes Burns headed in a winner to settle this top end of League One clash.

Pompey boss Cowley, whose side arrived at Portman Road still unbeaten in the league, talked a lot about the Blues' budget in the build-up.

After the game, McKenna said: "The longer that you're here you get a really good feel for the culture of the club and the challenge of being at this club. Part of that challenge in this league is that you will have other managers and other teams who want to talk about Ipswich. People want to big up our football club and downgrade their own players and their own football club for different reasons.

"Part of that is to create a false entitlement that we should be winning games and we should be dominating teams like Portsmouth and we should be winning this league.

"I think everyone within the club now needs to be clever enough, having seen that for the last few years, to know that it's a false kindness. It's a kindness to trick and trap the football club into feeling like anything other than hard work is going to win us football matches and progress as a club.

"I think we have no right to dominate the first half as much as we did today. I think Portsmouth have an outstanding team full of Championship players. If you want to count the Championship appearances between the two teams you would find an interesting match-up.

"One of the only players they have that doesn't have Championship experience is one of the best young strikers in world football, in my opinion, in Dane Scarlett.

"I think Danny has done a fantastic job recruiting. He has an excellent team that is deep on quality and we had no right to dominate that first half as much as we did.

"We dominated because of how the players apply themselves and how hungry and humble they've been in their day-to-day work. That's the only thing that's going to make us successful as a football club. It's where we've got to remain focussed.

"As a club - players, staff, supporters - we need to understand that people want us to think differently. People will want to downplay their own club to justify certain things, to justify styles of play and approaches to games and to try and put themselves in a position to get points from us.

"We need to be above that, we need to be very, very clever, we need to be very, very hungry and humble as a football club to do as we did today, to stick together, perform and work very, very hard. That gives a chance to perform as we did in the first half and the chance to go on and win games."

Portsmouth looked to be running down the clock early in this game, but at 3-2 it was Ipswich fans who took great pleasure in refusing to give the ball back whenever it went into the crowd.

"It wasn't something we were looking to happen," said McKenna. "But I understand it from the fans' point of view. I've seen so many teams come here and try and waste time. We saw it again today from the first minute. So I understand the irony, possibly, of our fans trying to keep hold of the ball at the end.

"The referee adds it on, so it's not an addition to us. I was happy to see the ball come back in play.

"I think the league should look at more of a multi-ball system. I know the Premier League has looked at it. Ball in play time and time-wasting is an important issue in the league.

"It's not something we look to do a lot as a club, but I can understand our fans enjoying that moment today."

Reflecting on the match as a whole, he said: "It was a really good game. I'm proud of the performance, proud of the players, proud of the staff around the team for how they've been this week. We thoroughly deserved the three points. We had complete domination of the first half and, I think, got what we deserved after the last few weeks' performances (leads having been let slip at Sheffield Wednesday and Plymouth).

"It was good to get the win. We know it's only three points, but for the confidence in the group it's a good three points. Now it's on to Tuesday night (at home against Cambridge United)."

On Portsmouth's second penalty equaliser, given for a Sam Morsy foul just inside the area, McKenna said: "It was a deflating moment. The two penalties were completely individual moments not in the context of the flow of the game.

"I'm really pleased with how we responded. We've spoken a lot about game management and resilience in difficult moments. I thought we did that very well today. I thought we managed out the game after 3-2 very, very well.

"I'm proud of the response to the goals. Of course you're going to have set-backs. We want less of them. But it's football and stuff happens.

"Two penalties against in a home game is quite bizarre. That's three against us here this season and we've not had a penalty in 30-plus games. That doesn't make it easier, but that's when you have to dig deep in your performance and your spirit. We managed to do that today."

On his side's winner, which saw Kyle Edwards' cross loop up off a defender and over the keeper's head for Wes Burns to nod in on the goalline, the Blues boss said: "I didn't see it as that much of a break, to be honest. I thought it was really good play by Kyle and he stood a cross up. Of course it gets a nick.

"But if we're talking about luck we're probably still due a few and if we're talking about decisions we're still probably due a few. I don't think today's win was a lucky win by any means, I thought it was a deserved win. It's just nice to come out on the right side of tight margins."

He added: "It's nice for the confidence and mentality of the group, definitely. Sometimes you have to go through negative experiences to learn, but you also need some positive reinforcement and see that when you're doing the right things you get that reward.

"Pride is my over-riding feeling today. Now we know there's another big one coming Tuesday."

With second half subs Ladapo and Edwards helping Town win this game, McKenna said: "We spoke about that. It's something we felt we needed to get back to, that real fresh impetus off the bench. Of course we've lost a few bodies off the bench, but we really needed to get back to that big impact when we make our changes on 60/70 minutes.

"We certainly did that today. Freddie gave us a good fresh impetus after Tyreece (John-Jules) had worked his socks off. He carried the baton, gave the centre-halves a different problem and scored a really good goal.

"Kyle Edwards came on and did what he's been doing in training. He gave us that one-v-one impact. He went on the outside of a wrong-footed defender. It's really good play.

"He's put together his best couple of weeks training consecutively by far in my time at the club. If you do that you deserve your chances.

"Dominic (Ball) then came on as well and helped us see out and manage that last part of the game well."