Ipswich Town manager Kieran McKenna says it’s important his squad regroups ‘really quickly’ after this international break.
After losing their opening two Premier League games to Liverpool (2-0 at home) and Man City (4-1) away, the newly-promoted Blues got their first point on the board last weekend courtesy of an entertaining 1-1 draw with Fulham at Portman Road.
Currently, 10 of the squad are away on international duty: Sammie Szmodics, Chiedozie Ogbene, Dara O’Shea (all Republic of Ireland), Liam Delap (England U21s), Jens Cajuste (Sweden), Aro Muric (Kosovo), Axel Tuanzebe (DR Congo), Cameron Burgess (Australia), Ali Al-Hamadi (Iraq) and Cieran Slicker (Scotland U21s).
With Harry Clarke, Nathan Broadhead, Wes Burns and George Hirst all still recovering from injuries, and Omari Hutchinson having returned from England U21 duty for ‘medical assessment’, that’s left McKenna with just 12 fully fit first team players to work with on the training field in recent days (Christian Walton, Ben Johnson, Luke Woolfenden, Jacob Greaves, Leif Davis, Conor Townsend, Sam Morsy, Kalvin Phillips, Massimo Luongo, Jack Taylor, Conor Chaplin and Jack Clarke).
“We would (have liked them all with us), but there’s no point thinking about it because it is what it is,” said the Blues boss.
“We’re always happy when the boys get international call-ups. In recent times there hasn’t been so many and that’s progressed over the last couple of years. Now we’re at the position where more than half the squad will be away.
“Like all things we try and take the positive from it. It gives us some really good focused time with the ones that are here. We can put more individual care, attention and work into those who are here. That will include some new players, but having that time with the players who have been here will also be valuable too.
“We’ll try and use this two-week period as best as we can. It will be important that we regroup really, really quickly after the break.”
Town travel to in-form Brighton this coming Saturday. The Seagulls have taken seven points from their opening three games, beating Everton and Manchester United then drawing at Arsenal.
After that comes a trip to fellow newly-promoted side Southampton followed by the visit of Champions League outfit Aston Villa to Portman Road.
Leave a Reply