Ipswich Town: Kieran McKenna looking forward to facing Pep Guardiola’s Manchester City
Ipswich Town manager Kieran McKenna is looking forward to the challenge of facing Pep Guardiola’s Manchester City at Portman Road tomorrow (4.30pm).
The Tractor Boys currently sit in the relegation zone and come up against the current Premier League champions who have been struggling on the pitch since key midfielder Rodri ruptured the anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) in his right knee against Arsenal in September.
Pep Guardiola’s men are on a five-game unbeaten run but are sixth in the table and allowed Brentford to come from two goals down to secure a late 2-2 draw on Tuesday.
Despite City’s underwhelming form this season, Blues boss Kieran McKenna has urged his side to respect Sunday’s opponents.
“They’ve obviously had mixed results. We need to go into it with humility, respect the opponents, but also believe in ourselves to do something that no one would think we'd be able to do.
“One, make it a really competitive game, and two, of course, get a result. So, yes, we, of course, respect the opponent.
“This season, we know that they're still a top, top, top team. We'll prepare in the best way possible, but we also need to find a way to go and compete and try to make it as difficult a game for them as possible.”
McKenna also reflected on August’s meeting between the two sides, where City came out on top in a 4-1 win.
Erling Haaland scored a hat-trick and Kevin de Bruyne also bagged after Sammie Szmodics scored on his full debut in the 7th minute.
“We played them really early in the season and of course, we got ourselves in a great position with an early goal,” McKenna said.
“One of the biggest reflections on the game was probably that we weren't able to handle the negative momentum away from home and when they scored the first goal from our mistake really, giving them a penalty, they were able to take the game away from us really, really quickly and we weren't able to manage that.
“So I think we have improved in that phase of the game, certainly in tough games away from home, we've learned to manage negative momentum better than we did that day.
“I'm sure we're going to have to do that Sunday at times as it's certainly not going to be our way for 90 minutes, so we're going to have to dig in and stick together at periods of the game.
“But also we want to try and impose ourselves on them, which we weren't able to do too much in the first game after we got the goal.
“It's going to be a great challenge and it's one to look forward to.”
The game comes after Norwegian striker sensation Haaland signed a new long-term deal with Manchester City that will keep him at the Etihad until 2034.
The Norwegian joined City from Dortmund in 2022 and has scored 111 goals in 126 games for the club since his arrival in England.
The last time Town beat Manchester City was a 2-1 top-flight win in May 2001 when George Burley was manager.
Goals from Matt Holland and Martijn Reuser condemned City to their third relegation in the space of five seasons.