Ipswich Town boss Kieran McKenna admitted his side conceded two poor goals as they were defeated 2-0 by Everton at home but felt the VAR decision to overturn a first-half penalty, awarded after Jack Clarke had been fouled, was “inexplicable”.
Iliman Ndiaye and Michael Keane, twin brother of former Town striker Will, netted on 17 and 40 to see the visitors to victory.
“It ends up a poor day for us,” McKenna admitted. “I think the margins in the first half were very small between us producing a good performance and being in a good place at half-time with chances missed.
“Of course, the goals they scored, which from our point of view are poor goals and, of course, the penalty decision, which I find really hard to understand.
“The margins were very small between how we were going in at half-time. They didn’t go our way and we go in at half-time 2-0 down.
“And in the second half we weren’t able to produce a response that was good enough against a strong, experienced Premier League side, and we weren’t able to get ourselves back in the game.”
Referee Michael Oliver initially gave the spot-kick in the 28th minute when Dwight McNeil tripped Jack Clarke.
“My view of it was exactly as I saw it at the time and I find it inexplicable how it can be overruled, it’s inexplicable how you could debate the penalty,” McKenna said when asked how he saw the incident.
“At the time, it looked like a penalty, it felt like a penalty. Of course, I’m seeing that through an Ipswich lens, but Jack dribbles a couple of players into the box, he’s about to shoot, there’s every chance it’s a goal, and Dwight McNeil lunges across the line of the ball right when he’s on his back-swing.
“Of course, you can say then that Jack’s foot is what strikes Dwight McNeil, but Dwight McNeil lunges across the line of the ball in the penalty area, which I don’t think you can do as a defender. He hasn’t touched the ball, he probably hasn’t even made an attempt to play the ball, he’s stopped Jack taking his shot.
“I think it’s a penalty, I understand how it’s one you could possibly debate but what I can’t understand is how all the directives we’ve had and everything that I’ve experienced so far are that unless it’s a clear an obvious error, then it won’t be reviewed, the referee’s decision on field will stand for a good reason because the referee has the best view and the referee can also feel the action at full speed.
“I think it’s a really poor decision for that to be identified as a clear and obvious error. I spoke to Michael downstairs on it, we had a respectful conversation.
“To be honest, he saw it as I saw it, it’s a debatable action. We both agreed that Dwight O’Neil stepped across the line of the ball as Jack Clarke’s about to shoot and he agreed that I’ll think it’s a penalty and [Everton manager] Sean [Dyche] probably won’t think it’s a penalty, but it’s at least a debatable decision, so it doesn’t fall in the category of a clear and obvious [error and] so I don’t understand why it’s been [overruled].
“I think it’s disappointing and I think everyone who knows me knows I very rarely speak about referees, I don’t want to spend much of the season talking about VAR. It’s one thing I am conscious of at the club because I don’t do it, it can’t stand against the club, as against other clubs and other teams who do speak about it a lot.
“That’s the only thing I’m conscious of at the moment but I think we had a really poor one go against us today.”
McKenna agreed that referees should have the strength to stand by their decisions: “That would be my perspective. I spoke to Michael about it downstairs and his reflection was that it’s very difficult when you’re hearing in your ear, ‘OK, this is what we’re seeing, Jack Clarke has struck the back of Dwight [McNeil’s leg]’, he said when that’s being fed into your ear, it’s very difficult to go against that, but he still agreed it was a debatable decision.
“So in that instance, for me, again it’s not something I’ve too much interest in talking about apart from protecting the club, but I think it’s one where he shouldn’t be putting that decision by the VAR.
“I think he felt the right decision in the game from a good position at full speed and there’s nothing that I’ve seen, and I’ve watched a lot of replays and a lot of angles, that you could tell me that it’s clear that it was the wrong decision.”
The Northern Irishman felt the goals his side let in were preventable: “Of course they were. They were poor goals to concede. The first one’s a mistake, the second on the set play is a poor goal to concede, we defended the first ball well, we didn’t defend the second ball anywhere near well enough and we know Everton are strong in those situations and you can’t afford to give away goals like that and give yourself to get the result that we want.”
The Blues boss says Everton played as he expected them to: “They didn’t do anything to surprise us. The first half was as we expected. Their strengths are pretty obvious.
“In the second half I thought they performed well, they hung onto the 2-0 well, they controlled the game well with the ball and showed their experience, and they’ve got a real high level of individual quality so when any of the front four have the ball, you never feel fully safe, but there were no surprises today.”
Had Town got a goal back in the second half, then McKenna thought they might have pushed on and got something from the match.
“Of course, at 2-0 you know if you get the next goal you’ve got a good chance, especially at home and especially with the history that we have in those situations,” he continued.
“And we had some opportunities maybe in the last 15 minutes, especially. And if one of those goes in we know we’re set for a big finish.
“But I think over the course of it, the second half performance, I don’t think we managed to do enough in terms of putting pressure on the opposition and dominating the game and really getting the crowd into the game to really say that we deserved to come back.”
The injuries to Axel Tuanzebe, Jacob Greaves and Ben Johnson meant Town fielded Luke Woolfenden and Cameron Burgess, making his Premier League debut, at centre-half and Dara O’Shea at right-back.
“I thought all three of them did OK,” McKenna reflected. “I thought in general, the defensive structure in the first half, that wasn’t really the problem, it was just moments.
“Of course, two centre-halves are always going to have their hands full with [Dominic] Calvert-Lewin and he had a few moments, but he’s had them in every game this season.
“To be fair to Cameron, considering he’s come in for his Premier League debut, he didn’t arrive back from Japan until Thursday and he’s not played a club game for quite a while, so I think he can be proud to make his Premier League debut. He had a pretty solid performance and he’ll benefit, as the rest of the group will benefit, from a full training week now.”
Town are 17th but with the gap to Everton in 16th now four points. Asked how he can avoid that starting to look wider and more daunting, McKenna smiled: “Probably avoid looking at it is the best way. We want to have more points on the board than we do. Of course, it’s important to pick up points.
“We have played eight games, we’ve got a result in four of them, if one or two of them had been wins, even if one of those had have been a win and we had the same points, then that would be a little bit different.
“But it is what it is, we can’t focus on that. We know that there are things we need to improve on, we also feel that for spells of games we’re really in the game.
“I think today we were really in the game and when we can impose our structure, our patterns, our organisation on teams on and off the ball, then our individual quality also comes to the fore and we look like we can be a competitive side in the division.
“But we’ve also felt that games can get away from you quickly in terms of momentum and we’re also feeling that the individual quality of the opposition players is really, really high, much higher than most of our players have experienced before and moments in games and moments of quality can cost you.
“And also mistakes can be punished really, really ruthlessly and when a game gets away from you, it’s really, really hard to wrestle it back.
“It’s really early days, we know it was a challenging summer, a lot of the group didn’t really come together until the end of August and since then we’ve had four weeks [when players have been] on international duty.
“We’ve had one home game here since August, so it’s not been very easy to get a momentum and get into the season, especially when we’re having some injuries and we’re having to be put debutants in every week and new players in different partnerships with players they haven’t played with before.
“There’s no doubt that makes a challenge. It’s a long season, there are spells in the season where we will have more consistency and continuity, hopefully, and for us it’s about trying to stick on the right path, keep doing the things that we’re doing well and be honest and open enough to reflect and try and improve the things we’re not doing so well.”
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