Ipswich Town 2-4 Nottingham Forest: Kieran McKenna says quickfire first-half goals down to ‘terrible’ defending and admits gap to Premier League safety now ‘big’

Ipswich Town boss Kieran McKenna was left to rue his side conceding “three really, really bad goals” just before half-time in their 4-2 home defeat to Nottingham Forest and admitted the gap to Premier League safety is now very big.

Once again, there was little in the game for the first half hour until the visitors, who are third in the Premier League, went ahead on 35 through Nikola Milenkovic with two Anthony Elanga goals following within six minutes to all but seal the three points.

Jens Cajuste pulled one back for the Blues with eight minutes remaining, Jota Silva made it 4-2 on 87, before George Hirst scored in injury time for Town.

To compound the disappointment, Wolves, 17th in the table, one place above the Blues, won 2-1 away against bottom side Southampton to increase the gap Town need to surmount to nine points, plus a goal difference of 16, with only nine matches left to play.

“A really disappointing day,” said McKenna, appearing more downcast than at any stage this season.

“I think it’s pretty clear looking at the timeline of the game and looking at the goals, it’s three really, really bad goals from our point of view in the first half, especially the first and the third goals in a six-minute spell that turns a stable game, an even game, into a near-impossible task at 3-0 down at half-time.

“Of course, that’s where the main frustration lies, in the goals and the speed with which they came and the manner in which we conceded them, and it’s took away the opportunity for us to compete in the game and try and get a result.

“They were terrible goals from our point of view, the first and the third goal, especially. That’s about us.

“The second goal is also maybe representative. We have a big opportunity on the breakaway, an overload against them, we had lots of them in the first half, but our quality and level to execute wasn’t good enough to really go and hurt them, and then we lose the ball and it goes out to [Anthony] Elanga and, to be fair, it’s incredible execution from him.

“That goal maybe you can say represents the jump in the level and the jump that our players and staff and everyone needs to aspire to get to.

“But the first and third goals are 100 per cent on us. Goals that shouldn’t happen and, again, not something that we can accept and we need to take real accountability for that.”

McKenna started with Omari Hutchinson as his number 10, Julio Enciso on the left and Jaden Philogene on the right for the first time before switching them around at half-time with Liam Delap as usual the centre-forward.

The Blues boss has said before that he has been unable to field the same team and the same partnerships throughout the season.

“I think that’s been a problem,” he said. “We’ve said that, in terms of building steady cohesion.

“We’ve tried to do that as much as we could over the last couple of weeks, that’s the first time that we’ve played with that permutation of a front four.

“But our execution wasn’t good enough. We lost the ball in too many good situations and we lost some big, big moments that we had, whether we broke the pressure in the first half or when we regained the ball in the first half and our execution in those moments wasn’t good enough.

“At an individual level, we’re better than we showed today. From a balance point of view, it’s something I’ve got to reflect on again and try and find the best partnerships.

“They’re not necessarily the best partnerships from a technical point of view or using the skillsets, it’s also about the experience, maturity, physicality, finding all the right ingredients that we’re going to need to be more competitive in the games than we were today. We certainly didn’t find what we needed today.”

McKenna, who confirmed the half-time substitution of Jacob Greaves was tactical rather than down to an injury, admits safety is now a very long way away.

“I think there’s been a mountain to climb all season,” he said when asked if there is now a mountain to climb to avoid dropping back into the Championship after one season in the top flight. “The gap’s big, there’s no doubt about that in terms of points and that is not where we wanted to be at this stage.

“On the other hand, we have two games in fairly quick succession when we come back. We play Bournemouth and Wolves in a three-day period, it’s a chance to pick up six points. Things can change really, really quickly.

“Again, it’s a game that for 35 minutes we were right in, there’s nothing in it, but there’s no point in us thinking about how many wins we’re going to need or what run we’re going to put together, we need to try and win the next one, we need to go to Bournemouth away and try get something.

“If we can do that, then we have Wolves here on the Saturday and the picture can change pretty quickly.

“We need to use the next two weeks well, the players who are here, players who are away, and then we’ve got a big week coming up.”