Ipswich Town manager Kieran McKenna ‘frustrated’ after 1-1 draw in the Championship with Watford

Frustrated Kieran McKenna felt his Ipswich Town team created more than enough chances to have beaten Watford, the game at Portman Road having ended 1-1 after the Blues failed to take a number of late second-half opportunities.

Imran Louza gave the Hornets the lead on 16 with their first serious attack of the match, but Jaden Philogene levelled five minutes later to take his tally for the season to six.

Town had plenty of opportunities to win it, especially late on, with Ivan Azon, Marcelino Nunez, Jack Taylor and Cedric Kipre all unable to convert good opportunities.

“Frustrated with the result, frustrated to just get a point in the game,” McKenna said. “Of course, there were some ups and downs in the game, but I thought there were more positives than negatives and certainly on chances created we’ve done more than enough to win the game, so we’re frustrated to only come out of it with a point.

“But we have to keep learning and improving, take the lessons from it. We’ve conceded a poor goal, so we’re all disappointed with that, at a moment when we’ve not really had to do any defending and we’re all back there as a team.

“The reaction to the goal was really good, that’s a big positive, learned from previous lessons. Came together well as a group, got straight back into our football, kept cool heads, scored a really good goal, so we get ourselves to half-time in a decent position.

“And I think most of the second half we’ve chased it well. It’s not easy when a team are defending deep and really trying to hang on for the result for a lot of the half.

“You’ve got to work the ball wide, you’ve got to get into good crossing positions, you’ve got to get bodies in the box.

“We did that, we got a couple of great chances off it. We had some shots around the edge, we had some chances from set plays, we did enough of the things that you need to do in that situation to feel that over the course of time we certainly would have won that second half and won the game.”

Azon had perhaps Town’s best two opportunities, nodding one wide, while Watford keeper Egil Selvik made a very good save from the other, also a header.

The Spaniard, on loan from Serie A Como for the season, is still to open his account for the Blues despite having come close in virtually every game he’s played.

“As a forward, you can only keep getting in the right positions and he’s doing that and he’s giving us good energy, whether he starts, whether he comes on,” McKenna said.

“He’s had chances all the time he’s on the pitch, so he’ll be frustrated not to score. Of course, we’re all frustrated we didn’t take one of the chances and we’ve probably got quite a few forwards in that category who maybe can’t quite believe how they’ve not scored yet.

“But I’m sure when the first goal goes in with quite a few of them on an individual level they’ll feel a lot better and our execution in terms of taking chances and being clinical will go up.

“It’s obvious to say, but you can see it with the boys on the left. When you get your first goal, whether that’s Jaden’s against Sheffield United here, Jack (Clarke) took the penalty against Derby, and it all feels really different and things fall to you and you’re really clinical.

“We’ve not had that across the frontline. We need it and we need it sooner rather than later, but the boys are trying, working hard, getting into good positions pretty consistently, so I’m sure on an individual level goals will come and that will help us as a team win more games.”