Kieran McKenna wants Ipswich Town to control what they can as they aim to push for a remarkable salvation story.
The Tractor Boys, currently languishing in 18th place, put on an impressive performance on Wednesday as they beat Bournemouth 2-1 at the Vitality Stadium.
Nathan Broadhead broke the deadlock in the 34th minute with his first Premier League goal before Liam Delap continued his fine form to double Ipswich’s advantage on the hour mark.
Evanilson pounced on a rebound to snag a goal for the Cherries but the visitors held firm to seal their first league win of 2025.
Ipswich take on Wolves next in a huge clash. They are nine points behind Vitor Pereira’s side, meaning victory would throw them right back into contention to stay up.
McKenna told Sky Sports: “Really proud, a bit of relief after the last 10 minutes when everyone is so desperate to get the result over the line.
“Very proud of the performance in terms of how hard we worked, the quality of the goals we scored, some of our play and the resilience we showed defensively.
“We’ve been waiting for a win in the league, that can happen, but everyone has stuck together, stuck at it. There’s a lot of belief, and you can see togetherness in us as a team.
“Let’s see. We can only control us. Coming into the last quarter of the season, we want to make this the best quarter of our season. Where it leaves us, let’s see.
“[Wolves] are a team one position above us in the league, we can only control our performance and let’s hope we get that result.”
Three points on the road. #BOUIPS | @Nustone_UK pic.twitter.com/5Fr31uLBTe
— Ipswich Town (@IpswichTown) April 2, 2025
The Ipswich boss was also full of praise for Delap, who scored his 11th goal of the season.
Delap has scored 36.7% of Ipswich’s Premier League goals in 2024-25 (11/30), with only Alexander Isak (41%), Mohamed Salah (39%) and Erling Haaland (36.8%) netting a higher share of their side’s goals this term.
“A fantastic team move, Delap’s goal is the best goal anyone will score [at the Vitality Stadium] this season,” McKenna said.
“[Bournemouth] are hard to play against and play through. Liam took it in customary fashion!”
Defeat at Vitality Stadium. pic.twitter.com/9ZUqg4ulxP
— AFC Bournemouth (@afcbournemouth) April 2, 2025
As for Bournemouth, Andoni Iraola expressed frustration at his side’s struggles in defence, with the Cherries now having lost four of their last five Premier League matches.
“Now everything is costing us a lot. We need a lot of chances to score goals,” he told Sky Sports, having seen his team have 24 shots and finish with 1.95 expected goals, while they also saw a penalty given and then overturned by VAR.
It compounded a tough week for Iraola’s side, who were eliminated from the FA Cup by Manchester City at the weekend.
“When you are in a bad turn of results like we are now, everyone goes against you. Even the penalty is a little bit outside, the deflections go for them, the clearances are off the line. But you have to persist,” Iraola added.
“For us, it’s a difficult result, but at the end of the day, we will keep believing in our offensive players, support them more on the other side.
“But in the game today, we cannot concede two goals. If we are not able to score, finish with a clean sheet. But definitely not concede the goals.”
