Kieran McKenna pleased as Ipswich dig deep to see off Peterborough

Ipswich manager Kieran McKenna felt his side deserved their 2-1 victory over Peterborough, hailing the effort of his side as “fantastic”.

Meanwhile, Peterborough boss Grant McCann said his players kept going throughout the game and felt they were the strongest towards the end of the match as they pressed for an equaliser.

It was a brace from Conor Chaplin which helped high-flying Ipswich gain the victory they just about deserved and condemned Peterborough to their fourth defeat on the trot.

Chaplin put Town ahead following a pinpoint cross from Sam Morsy but the visitors almost equalised in the 27th minute when a free-kick from 35 yards by Jonson Clark-Harris struck the top of the bar.

Frankie Kent drew the sides level four minutes later. He squeezed home a header from a Kwame Poke cross following a short corner routine.

Chaplin put the Town in front in the 58th minute with a strike from the centre of the penalty area following a corner from Leif Davis.

“It was down to the players and you get what you deserve,” McKenna said.

“I thought that the effort was fantastic and I’m proud of the players, proud of the spirit, it was a difficult game, a difficult opponent, a tense stadium and the players stuck together and showed resilience and quality at times and deserved to win.

“I thought the players were excellent and I thought the game was edgy the first 10, 15 minutes.

“We are not going to play fantastic in every game and we are playing against a Peterborough team which, by my count, maybe, 10 of their outfield starters finished off the Championship last year.

“We are playing with a squad heavily depleted by injury and we’ve a group of players with two academy players at the heart of it against the best forward in the league by most people’s reckoning, alongside the rest of the players, giving everything they can and don’t think we can ask for anything more.

“We have a group of players who give everything for the shirt and I can’t be prouder of them today and the effort that they gave and deserved the three points.”

Beaten boss McCann had issues with some of the defending, but still saw plenty of positives.

McCann said: “It’s a better performance than last week for sure and we’ve come to a very good Ipswich team, they play well and are difficult to play against but I thought we were more than a match for them today.

“I was seriously disappointed with the second goal, it’s just a free ball into the box from a corner and it’s a disappointing goal for us to concede.

“In terms of the play we thought we kept trying to do what we done during the week, the movements, the rotations, trying to create opportunities and chances.

“It was a good goal from a set-play something that we had been working on also to try and improve.

“I said to the boys ‘I’m really disappointed for you today because the performance was good it’s just that the result is disappointing’.

“The second half we had some good chances, we had a large amount of control in the second half particularly when we changed shape the last 20 minutes. If it wasn’t for the set-play when we switched off the game probably finishes in a draw.”