Kieran McKenna annoyed as Ipswich’s winless start to the season continues

Kieran McKenna criticised his Ipswich side after their winless start to the season continued with a 1-0 Sky Bet Championship defeat away to Preston.

Milutin Osmajic’s 11th-minute penalty proved to be the difference in a match where the Tractor Boys dominated possession but lacked a cutting edge around the final third.

The Ipswich boss said: “(I’m) really annoyed about the result. We wanted to give ourselves and the supporters a better day today.

“We need to do better, that’s my overriding feeling. Every one of us, me first – we need to do better.

“We started quite brightly but we conceded a goal we can’t concede if we want to be a successful Championship team. A really soft goal.

“We don’t defend the goal-kick well enough. We don’t defend the first real ball into our box. If we aren’t stronger in those situations, we won’t be successful this year and that’s clear. We need to face up to that.”

Osmajic won the penalty after a tussle with Jacob Greaves, with mixed opinions on whether the spot-kick should have been awarded, but the Ipswich manager was more concerned with his team’s defending in the build-up.

He said: “I think it looks a big six-of-one, half-a-dozen of the other but I’m more frustrated in our part of it.”

Ipswich have had another turnover with the likes of Omari Hutchinson and Liam Delap leaving for big money and they remain in search of their first league victory of the season, despite being considered one of the favourites for promotion back to the Premier League.

“I think at the moment, our attacking play is not cohesive enough,” McKenna added.

“The connections on the pitch aren’t strong enough. They need to be built. We need to build those connections, find the right balance, find a way to be a consistent threat and find the belief.”

Paul Heckingbottom was in buoyant mood after Preston extended their unbeaten start to the season to four matches – three of which were in the league.

The Preston boss said: “I go back to what I was speaking about in pre-season: forget the negativity, why are we talking about what other clubs are spending or this player and that player or why aren’t we spending? If that was important, we’d have lost the game today.

“They’re bringing £14million off the bench. They’ve got unbelievable talent on the bench that couldn’t come on the pitch. If that was the be-all and end-all, we’d have lost that game.

“We’ve signed good characters. We don’t win that game if we don’t sign good people and I think everyone connected with Preston should be proud of every player today.

“We started the game really well, really aggressively and made them defend. We scored early again and that sets the tone and we protected the goal really well.

“We needed half-time and then we came out in the second half really positively again. You only need to get one or two things wrong and then you’re defending in your own half – that’s how good they are.”

On the decision to award the penalty, he added: “I’ve not watched it back but nobody complained so I take it that it was a good decision.”