McKenna hails ‘outstanding’ Ipswich despite missing chance to secure promotion – and provides update on injured star

McKenna hails ‘outstanding’ Ipswich despite missing chance to secure promotion – and provides update on injured star

Kieran McKenna hailed his Ipswich side’s “outstanding” performance in their 2-2 draw with Southampton despite missing the chance to secure promotion back to the Premier League.

Victory would have seen Ipswich move three points ahead of third-placed Millwall and too far ahead on goal difference to be caught.

But McKenna says his side should be feeling confident that they can get the job done on the final day of the season.

“We would have loved to have finished it tonight and we were millimetres from doing it, but for me it was an outstanding performance with all the things that we want to be as a team,” he said.

“It shows huge growth over the course of the season to produce a performance like that in your third away game in six days and game 45 in the season and it shows the trajectory that we’re on.

“We didn’t manage to get the win that we really wanted but as much as we said a draw isn’t any different than a loss, a draw is in how we feel going into the weekend and how it came about.

“We look forward to the weekend now. We go into it with confidence and belief from the work across the season and how that was evidenced in the game tonight. We know it’s going to be tough, we know it’s going to take a big, big push from everyone, but we believe that we’ll find it.”

Ipswich take on QPR on the final day, with McKenna hoping to have Jack Taylor back after missing the draw with Southampton.

“He had some swelling on his knee, so he wasn’t available tonight,” McKenna said. “We’ll assess it over the next 24 hours and see where he’s at for the weekend.”