McKenna delighted with Ipswich draw against Fulham

Liam Delap opened the scoring for Ipswich before Adama Traore equalized for Fulham.

McKenna later said: “I thought it was a good game, a good, solid performance from us showing growth and development in the team,” McKenna said.

“I thought we were really competitive in the game, probably had the better of it, although the margins were pretty tight, but I think we had the better of the second half, certainly, and looked the more likely team to win it.

“And that’s playing against a well-established Premier League team with great familiarity between the players, with the manager.

“With the jump that we’ve made, and we’re integrating six new players into the team, two or three making their Premier League debuts for us, so to produce a performance as well organised and as coordinated and of good spirit and with moments of quality as we did, I think is a positive sign of the steps that we’re taking.”

He also said: “I think we had more of the possession in the second half, more of the territory, more of the game was played in their half, we created momentum, we won set plays, we know our execution to create clear-cut chances needs to improve at this level.

“We got into some really good positions that should be resulting in probably the creation of a good chance but we didn’t even to manage to get a shot off in those situations.

“We feel like we had good control of the game for most of the second half, really. Our organisation and structure was really good. We managed to pin the opposition in for some spells and without creating many, many clear-cut opportunities.

“We had enough good pressure and moments like Omari (Hutchinson)’s shot, which comes from a couple of phases of an attack and I think everyone who has been to Portman Road, the supporters have all seen him flash goals in from that sort of position over the last 12 months, so we were hoping for one today, but it wasn’t meant to be.

“We take the point and the positives from the performance and we look to utilise the break well now and we know we’ve got some big and exciting games coming up.”

On the self-belief shown, McKenna was pleased.

“I think it was obvious, it was never going to be, especially in the Liverpool game, I said I think I said the players came away more confident from it, certainly from the first half,” McKenna said.

“And I think at the start of the game today we built on what we did against Liverpool in the first half and our pressure was really good and really aggressive again.

“I think the players are coming away from the first three games probably with more belief, and feeling that we’re in a good direction.

“That’s not to downsize the jump, the jump is massive and they’ve felt that. We know to get a win in the league you’re going to have to get a lot, a lot of things right on any given day. But I think they’ve come away feeling that we’re not too far away.

“We were right in the game today, we had some really good spells and I think they feel like they’re coming together as a team, our organisation, our spirit, the way they worked for each other with quite a new group of players, I think they’re feeling that we’re moving in the right direction.”