McKenna: In the first half, everything was wrong

admin | February 3, 2024 | Other Clubs | No Comments

Town manager Kieran McKenna said that almost everything that could have gone wrong did go wrong in the first half of his team’s 3-2 loss against Preston North End at Deepdale.

The Blues were 3-0 down at halftime, with the Lilywhites leading 2-0 in the eighth minute thanks to an opener from former Town striker Will Keane on five and an own goal by George Edmundson. Keane scored his second and the home team’s third six minutes before halftime.

McKenna’s side then produced a second-half recovery, with deadline day addition Kieffer Moore, who is on loan from AFC Bournemouth, making his second Blues debut from the bench at half-time and scoring twice to give Town hope for another legendary comeback. They kept pushing in the final minutes but eventually ran out of time.

“It was a difficult half,” McKenna stated when asked to reflect on the first quarter. “It’s a difficult place to come in any case, but when you concede two extremely unfortunate goals in the first eight or nine minutes, it makes it even more difficult.

“The first goal was a shot from about 30 yards that took a slight deflection and went into the corner.”

“The second goal is two yards offside, and it’s so blatant that the linesman can’t miss it. I believe George [Edmundson] made a strong choice to step forward, but it was the correct judgment given the striker was two yards offside. The linesman cannot miss it.

“You’re 2-0 down after eight minutes, which is the worst possible circumstance because Preston can then defend their box with a large number of bodies.

“Of course, we lacked a little in the last third, and our play there was not at the level that we desired.

“We lacked profile and presence in the final third, but this was magnified by the scoreline, which entirely determined the tone and feel of the game. Preston may feel good about their performance in the game because they had goals.

“Difficult first half. But at halftime, I honestly felt like we were still in the game. I didn’t think some aspects of the balance of play were too far off, but we needed to improve in the final third and avoid having anything else go against us.

“We certainly did that in the second and produced a really good performance that I think would have deserved to get something from the game.”

McKenna dismissed any suggestion of a hangover from last week’s FA Cup defeat to National League South Maidstone.

“No, I honestly don’t think it is,” he insisted. “We weren’t ourselves, and of course, we need to own and focus on our aims, but my second ambition is to officiate. The first goal is a great amount of misfortune, but we can still improve our blocking technique.

“We certainly did that in the second and produced a really good performance that I think would have deserved to get something from the game.”

McKenna dismissed any suggestion of a hangover from last week’s FA Cup defeat to National League South Maidstone.

“And his impact was clear to everyone. He was fantastic, and it gives us something to really work on next week.”

Despite the scoreline, the Blues manager admits he did not consider starting the on-loan AFC Bournemouth player, who had only joined the club on Thursday afternoon ahead of the deadline that evening, or making substitutions in the first half.

“Not really, to be honest,” he answered. “You could always take the risk, but I don’t think it would have been the appropriate thing to do. He hadn’t trained with the group, and he’s here for the next 17 games to have an effect, not just the first half today, so we weren’t too seduced by that.”

Ali Al-Hamadi, Town’s other new striker signing, looked energetic when he came on as a substitute in the second half.

“He was, he showed some of his dynamism in the final third and his physicality around the box,” he said.

“Good to get him on the pitch as well and we had so many chances in the second, were such a threat and the supporters behind the goal were fantastic and the only shame was that we weren’t able to get the next goal.”

today Town team has shown the spirit to come back in numerous games under McKenna, and today was no exception, even though they fell short on this occasion.

“I think it’s a day where in the first half pretty much everything that could go wrong, did go wrong and we were 3-0 down at a really tough stadium,” he said.

“But the lads still played a really fantastic second half, and I believe they deserved something from the game.

“I believe it says a lot. It’s unfortunate not to win; we haven’t had as many wins as we’d like recently, but we haven’t lost many games.

“We are competitive every week, the group keeps fighting to the end of every game and those qualities will stand us in good stead and we’ll continue to work and come back stronger when things don’t go our way.”

Regarding Preston’s third goal, he continued, “We misplaced a ball during the build-up. I will totally back the players in that scenario because they tried to do the right thing, something that has brought us success over the last two years, but we didn’t exactly execute it correctly.

“That’s never an issue for me when our intent is good; we recognize the benefits of having a style and a system that we believe in and adhere to, and we’ve had success as a result, and we will continue to do so.

“Of course, we’ll continue to improve on our execution; it wasn’t easy to do so many different things on the field today, but that’s football. Over the course of a season, various things can occur.

“When Vaz [Vaclav Hladky] hooks it clear with his left foot and they head it back down the middle of the pitch and score, no one notices, but when you lose in that circumstance, they do.

“We will provide full support to the players in that situation, and we will simply continue to work to improve.

“Of course, in the second half, we had the option of going over the press, which is essential to us and something we enjoy doing, and we were able to make good use of it.

“We’ll continue to work on all phases in the game and on build-up continue to try and be very, very good at combining out of those situations, but also now have the option to go over the top of the pressers in those situations and find different types of attacks.”

The Blues have dropped to fourth place as a result, but McKenna claims he isn’t paying much attention to the table, as he did when Town was second.

“There’s 46 games, that’s the fourth game that we’ve lost in the league this year, that’s a fantastic effort,” he told reporters.

“We know it won’t all be bright days. There are teams around us with terrific squads in incredible form, and if we spend all of our energy, or any of our energy at all, focused on them and the runs that they’re on, we won’t have the energy to remain competitive every week, as we have in the past.

“Today, we weren’t in the first half, it didn’t go the way that we wanted but over the course of 90 minutes in a tough stadium where they’ve taken points and performances from all the other teams at the top of the league as well, we still managed to produce over the course of 90 minutes a lot of good things.”

The Town boss is glad to have had a full week of training with his team, particularly last week’s new arrivals, before facing fifth-placed West Brom at Portman Road next Saturday.

“For sure,” the Northern Irishman replied. “Of course, we had the week this week, but it was a week of suspense, and until four o’clock on Thursday, we didn’t know if another striker would be in the door or if Kieffer would be in the door; there was a lot of anxiety around that.

“Ali, as I said, hasn’t trained with the group really yet, so it will be nice now to have a full week to be able to get some training time with those boys, to look at the ways that we can integrate them into our playing style and what they can add to us and prepare and look forward to a really good game now next weekend.”