Ipswich Town boss Kieran McKenna reveals Cameron Burgess is ‘in contention’ to return for West Brom visit at Portman Road
Kieran McKenna has stated that Cameron Burgess is ‘in contention’ to play against West Brom tomorrow at Portman Road (12.30pm), while there are no fresh injury concerns ahead of the visit of the Baggies.
The 28-year-old last played for Town on December 29, in a 0-0 draw at home to QPR, before he headed off to the Asian Cup with Australia.
While on international duty, the centre-back made two appearances for his country at the tournament, starting one game and making one appearance off the bench, as the Socceroos progressed to the quarter-final stage before they were knocked out by South Korea, in a 2-1 scoreline after extra-time last Friday.
McKenna, speaking about the defender who returned to Town this week, in his pre-match press conference said: “(He is) in contention. We’ll make a decision, of course he’s been away and not played too many games.
“I know we conceded goals last weekend, unfortunate on a couple of them, but I think the centre-halves in general have been playing quite well so there’s competition there now, and good cover.
“That’s what we’re going to need to the remaining games.”
When asked if there were any fresh injury concerns ahead of the visit of Carlos Corberán’s side, the Town boss said: “No. A few boys still in the rehabilitation here. Jack (Taylor) and Janoi (Donacien) are both making progress.”
The Blues bos was asked about the correlation of results at this point in the season to last year’s campaign, when the Blues also fell to a run of one win in eight games in all competitions at this point during their promotion push, and whether they could put anything they learnt from then into the final 17 games of this season.
“Yeah, I think you’re always going to have different phases in seasons anyway. Maybe one team might this year, but in general you’re not going to have a phase where you win nearly all your games, all the time, over a 46-game season,” said McKenna.
“Last Saturday was our first loss in 2024 in the league, you’re going to have phases and certainly we’re going to have phases in this division.
“It’s not that we need any reassurance but of course, last season we had phases as well. Probably a similar time of year and some similarities in terms of injuries and players missing.
“We’re now in a period trying to reintegrate new signings into the team which doesn’t happen overnight and I don;t think you’ll see us at our fullest, in terms of that integration, within one week.
“We continue to compete in a really tough division where everything’s difficult, competing at times when things go against you like they did last week with the two decisions and also maybe an element of last week, you’re playing on a really, really difficult pitch to play football on.
“There’s lots of things you can take but we know going into the season there’s going to be these spells where you don’t win as many games and that’s why we’re pretty consistent in sticking to our day-to-day work, doing the right things in the right attitude.
“That’s what we did last year and that’s what we continue to try and do this year.
“We’re on our own journey, we’re enjoying that journey with ups and downs of course along the way and we’re just sticking to the plan we’ve mapped out and sticking to doing the right things.”
