Sky Sports McKenna: We Have to Take Lessons From Game That Ran Away From Us.

Kieran McKenna believes his squad can learn from their 4-0 home defeat to Newcastle United, which he believed raced away from the Blues.

Town, who remain 18th in the Premier League and have yet to win at home this season, never looked like winning the game after the Magpies took the lead in the first 25 seconds via Alexander Isak, who went on to score his first hat-trick for the North-East club.

“We have to take some lessons from it, for sure,” McKenna said when asked what Town should learn from the defeat. “We haven’t had many like that; we’ve been quite competitive all season, and I’ve been saying that the group has done exceptionally well to be as competitive as we have.

“We needed to be close to 100% to be competitive in games and execute everything well, and we didn’t accomplish that today. We had a really excellent opponent who outperformed us today, and the game got away from us.

“There are obviously things that we can take from it; there are certainly things in the first half, in particular, that we need to improve on, things that we’ve done really well this season but did not do tonight.

“With the games that we have coming up, it’s crystal clear that we’re going to need to show a different side of us in the next couple of games.”

Reflecting on the lessons that his squad must learn, he added: “I think the first goal, of course, is frustrating, but we’ve made a few of mistakes in the goal, which is what happens when you’re a team that begins on the front foot against a very, very talented team.

“For me, the period leading up to halftime, the 20 minutes leading up to halftime, because after the goal, we were in the game, we were OK, we had lots of opportunities on the ball, we went to nice positions, we had some great chances, and the game was fairly open.

“But I think the game started to get away from us at the midpoint of the first half, and they were becoming a big, big, big threat, and our game management, decisions, defensive organization, and defensive resilience, things that we’ve been excellent at this season and that we’ve relied on in difficult times.

“We didn’t do them tonight, and we left the game to be open, end-to-end, which worked well for Newcastle given the people on the pitch and where we were. We didn’t stop that flow, which is part of why the game went from 1-0 in the first half to 3-0 and completely slipped away from us.

“I think we needed to manage that period of the game very, very differently and make sure that we got to half-time at 1-0 down and gave ourselves a chance to attack the second half.”

When asked about the opening goal, in which Jacob Murphy slipped in behind left-back Leif Davis, McKenna said: “It’s not probably giving up too much, we know that Leif is incredibly active in terms of going to press on the first phase, he’s done it for two and a half seasons here.

“Of course, we must execute effectively if we want to remain a daring and competitive squad, and you will always leave some room.

“It wasn’t an unusual move for us from a defensive point of view, but we didn’t deal with it as well as we usually do.”

 

McKenna said of hat-trick scorer Isak: “He’s a very talented striker; we’ve played a lot of excellent attackers this year, but he’s at a very high level, and everything that we felt Newcastle were and that everyone knows they are at their best, they proved tonight.

“They have amazing athleticism and quickness, not only in the frontline, but also at full-back and in midfield. They’ve got incredible athleticism, and they managed to open us up today, and we didn’t manage the game well enough when it was open to close it down, and if the game ends up as open as it was in the first half today, it doesn’t give us our best chance; it gives Newcastle their best chance, and their forwards were all a big, big threat.”

Regarding Newcastle’s third goal, Isak’s second, when Town lost control when playing out of the back, he said: “We’ll never know whether it was a costly moment,” when asked if it had been a harmful moment.

“I believe the specific action we’ve done time and time again this season and last season, and we’re really one of the teams who have allowed the fewest from building up, we’ve done well with it.

“I believe the event was more in the context of the 15 or 20 minutes I’m referring to, where we weren’t managing the game properly, where we weren’t understanding the situation of the game, and that incident is, of course, easy to identify because we need to improve shortly before half-time.

“But that was completely in the flow of the 15 or 20-minute period when there were a lot of decisions like that from an attacking and defending standpoint that led to opportunities for the opposition.”

“I don’t think it was particularly a debate about playing out of the back, which we know works well for us this season and in previous seasons, but more about controlling the game in extremely difficult circumstances. That goal was in context with the preceding 15-20 minutes.

McKenna noted that his squad missed the physical presence of banned Liam Delap, who had been replaced by Sammie Szmodics at number nine.

“You always miss it in certain moments,” he told me. “To be honest, I believe the most of our troubles today stemmed from defensive and defensive transition issues.

“We went to excellent areas, we had chances in the game, Sammie gets a massive one-on-one at 1-0, and there aren’t many guys you’d want to put in that situation but him.

“Of course, you’re going to miss Liam’s brilliance in the final third; Liam offers us more options to play over the press or down the flanks of the press, which we didn’t have as much of in the first half, though Sammie had some excellent moments for us in those situations.

“We’ll always mourn Liam, especially now that George Hirst is out. But, for me, today’s difficulties were more about defensive transition and game management than what we did with the ball.

“I actually thought we had enough moments, we got through them enough, we broke their press enough, we broke their midfield line enough to have got something from the game, it was the chances that we gave away that were more of a problem.”

McKenna was impressed with how the Portman Road fans remained to support their team, despite a few boos at halftime.

“I thought the crowd were very good,” he claimed. “I believe the game was realistically over at halftime. Of course, at 3-0, you don’t give up on the outcome, and we wanted to score the next goal, but in the second half, after they got the fourth goal, it was about displaying the right traits, the right perseverance on the pitch, and the fans did as well at a very high level.

“They’ve stuck with us incredibly well, and they understand the group’s experience. I believe most people appreciate how difficult it has been for the team to be as competitive as it has been.

“Of course, we would have wanted to have narrowed the gap to win a couple more and grab a few more points, but to be as competitive as we have been, I believe the fans understands how much effort it takes, and today got away from us.

“We don’t want to have that sensation too frequently, so we have to absorb lessons fast and aim to reach our absolute maximum level in the next few games. We are appreciative for the crowd’s support and do not take it for granted.

After being without Delap today, the Blues will be without captain Sam Morsy at Arsenal on Friday, as the Egypt international received his fifth booking of the season after going nine games without a yellow card.

Kalvin Phillips, Morsy’s potential deputy, came in as a substitute in the second half for his first action since injuring his ankle in early November.

“He’s had a better week this week, it’s the first week this week since he had his injury when he’s been able to train uninterrupted all week, so that was a positive and good for him to get 30 minutes,” McKenna said of the player on loan at Manchester City.

“He and Jack Taylor are both ready and available; Massimo [Luongo] has been ill, so we’ll have to check on him over the next few days.”

“We are now without key players, which is a problem for our team. Of course, everyone misses players but we’re missing some big players and today we were missing, in terms of physicality in our squad, we were missing our most physical player against maybe the most physical team in the league, certainly right up there in the top three.

“From a physical point of view today, it was a massive challenge and we missed Liam and the other players who were missing and we’ll some in the next game against Arsenal but that’s the challenge that we have to rise to.”

McKenna says his team won’t dwell on the performance but at the same time won’t sweep it under the carpet.

“We won’t do that, but it’s not about brushing it either,” he said. “I think some of the lessons from today and some of the things that we didn’t do are going to be absolutely pivotal in the next couple of games.

“We’re taking about game management, defensive resilience, those sort of things. Going away to the Emirates is as tough as it gets in terms of the requirements in those respects.

“We’ve got to take the lessons from today and if we do, then in some ways it’s a useful time to go and have a couple of really, really difficult games because we’re going to have to go and show those things in abundance.”

Looking to January, McKenna was asked whether he will have money to spend during the transfer window.

“We want to try and make the squad stronger, that’s for sure, and do that in the best way possible,” he said.

“It’s not always about money to spend in January, it’s about finding the right players, the right deals to try and make the squad better. We’re certainly going to try and do that in January as, I’m sure, every team will.”

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