Ipswich Town manager Kieran McKenna has said that he would have liked to have more depth in a few different positions, following a tough run of games and a couple of bad injuries to his players.
The top three in the Championship just can’t seem to get out of their own way. If any of Ipswich, Leicester City or Leeds United had been able to carry the form that they have had for most of the season into this stage, then they might have already ran away with the league title.
Between the trio, they have dropped 26 points over their last five games. This leaves the top of the second tier in an equally level state to the one prior to this poor run for all of the teams, and it has now brought the possibility of Southampton causing an upset into the equation.
McKenna won the league’s Manager of the Season award over the weekend, following his team’s draw with Middlesbrough, and he reflected on one of the reasons why Town have stuttered at this stage of the season.
Kieran McKenna on Ipswich’s depth issue
The 37-year-old said, after winning the award, that the lack of options that he has in some positions in his team has made the effect of the number of minutes that his squad has had to play in recent weeks worse.
Town have had the likes of George Hirst and Wes Burns suffer major injuries that will keep them out until the final couple of games of the season, at the earliest, as per McKenna, via EADT, and this has led to a lot of minutes for some of his players.
McKenna told the BBC: “Some of the boys have played five games in the last 15 days, played 90 minutes every game – we’d like to have a little more depth in one or two positions.
“That’s an awful lot of football and every game’s gone to the wire. We’re the team that runs the most in the league, the boys put everything into it physically, and I think we’ll come back from the period stronger.
“Now we’ve got a little bit of time to train, prepare, recover and then we can look forward to three games. We know it’s going to be really tough, but it’s something to relish and I know we’ll give it everything.”
Ipswich may be in need of an unlikely hero
Often, throughout these long, grueling seasons, there are players that pop up who have an outstanding run over a three or four-game stretch. Something like that could be exactly what Town need to get themselves over the line.
Ipswich’s fate is still in their hands, despite not winning any of their last three matches. They have obvious big hitters in their squad, like Conor Chaplin and Kieffer Moore, but things aren’t quite going for them at the moment.
A spark plug performance from an Ali-Al Hamadi, or even someone who is more out of favour, like Kayden Jackson, could be the boost that they need to push themselves towards one of the top two spots.
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