Kieran McKenna, Ipswich Town’s manager, backed his players following their Carabao Cup loss against AFC Wimbledon.
Ipswich’s Ali Al-Hamadi and Conor Chaplin scored to tie the game 2-2 in normal time before Wimbledon triumphed on penalties.
“A perfect start, to be honest, there were some really positive things about the performance,” McKenna exclaimed.
“There wasn’t much wrong with it, except for our poor defense of two set plays, which we knew we couldn’t accomplish tonight.
“We did not defend two set moves effectively enough, which left us in a bad position. The slickness with which we play in the final third to create opportunities will increase as the players’ understanding grows. That was not quite there.
“Apart from that, there wasn’t much wrong with the performance.” And then we get to penalties, and things don’t go our way.
McKenna also stated, “We wanted to progress in the competition, but it’s very apparent what our priorities are this season, and we’ve got a lot of new players to integrate and few opportunities to do so.
“It’s not possible to do it in a Premier League game, so getting as many of them on the pitch tonight as we could was the football club’s priority, and, of course, there’s always the possibility that the performance won’t be as expected.
“That was the true with many aspects of the game, but it was mostly two set plays that killed us. It wasn’t that our overall performance, attitude, or anything else wasn’t falling short of expectations.
“We implemented the modifications. You realize that making such changes increases the likelihood of a bad outcome, but everyone knows what the football club’s top priority is this year, and it’s my obligation to make decisions that assist us achieve that goal.”