Ipswich looking for 'connection' of 2023-24 team

Ipswich Town boss Kieran McKenna admits his current team are not yet at the level of his promotion-winning squad from two years ago.

Town won promotion to the Premier League under McKenna in 2024, winning 28 of their 46 games to finish second behind Leicester City with 96 points.

Tuesday's draw at Blackburn left them seventh in the Championship, just a single point outside the play-off places and McKenna said he understood why some people might make comparisons between the two sides.

"It's not necessarily comparing the same thing. It's a completely different group, a group that are new together and new to the club, as opposed to a group that had grown together and had success together," he told BBC Radio Suffolk.

"This group aren't there yet, and teams play very differently against us in this season than the last season in the Championship.

"The reality is that you look at almost every metric and we have more chances and shots than we did in that season, and we concede less, but that group had something we haven't found in this group yet.

"The connection, the chemistry that group had, it doesn't come around every year, it doesn't come around every decade - not just in one club, in English football."

Ipswich were fourth in the table after winning at Hull City on 25 November, but have only managed one point from two games since then.

And an unhappy McKenna said the performance at Blackburn was one of their poorest of the season.

"This is a new group, we need to view it with those eyes, but it doesn't hide from the fact that we have to take accountability, individually and collectively," he added.

"We're not consistently where we want to be yet. That is normal when you've had such a turnover - you're looking at eight, nine different starters from the boys who started most games last year.

"I believe there's a lot of growth still to go if we do the right things but not every group fulfils its potential, not every player fulfils his potential, so that's up to us - there's no point talking about what we think we could be or about the talent that we have, we have to keep working hard to deliver it," McKenna added.

Three of Ipswich's next four games are at home - against leaders Coventry City, fourth-placed Stoke City and bottom-of-the-table Sheffield Wednesday.