Ipswich Town manager Kieran McKenna claims Joey Barton apologised to him after Tuesday’s 0-0 draw at the Mem for employing a more pragmatic style than what he’s become known for at Bristol Rovers.
The Gas successfully frustrated the League One promotion contenders to claim their first point in the division since January 7 and their first clean sheet in 11 matches in what could prove a hugely important result in the context of their season.
Barton’s side weren’t at their front-foot, free-flowing best but it was a performance built on discipline and organisation in defence and then trying to hit the Tractor Boys on the counter, which Aaron Collins came close to on a number of occasions.
Scott Sinclair also struck the upright with a close range chance which many inside the ground thought had crossed the line but replays showed otherwise and the on-field decision was the correct one.
For Ipswich, it was their sixth draw in their last eight games and they continue to lose touch with leaders Plymouth Argyle and second-placed Sheffield Wednesday in the automatic promotion places.
That they weren’t able to break Rovers down with an attacking department that any one of the five who entered the field over the course of the game - Freddie Ladapo, Marcus Harness, Nathan Broadhead, Conor Chaplin and George Hirst - would be starters elsewhere is testament to the Gas’ defensive effort but also highlights Ipswich’s peculiar lack of penetration as pressure builds on McKenna.
“Look, we’re playing tonight against one of the most attacking and aggressive and open teams in the league who usually score a lot and concede a lot,” McKenna told the East Anglian Daily Times.
“Their manager, credit to him for his honesty, has apologised to me straight after the game for not being willing to give us a match and not being willing to play their normal way. Credit that he has the self-awareness and the honesty to say that. I understand why, but it doesn’t help us.
“That’s the level - I don't know if you want to call it a level of respect, because we haven’t won enough games - but that’s the approach that teams are taking against us a little bit more.
“I think we face a completely different Bristol side tonight than any Bristol side I’ve seen this season. That shows why they managed to grind out a clean sheet.
“That’s the challenge we face. We can’t hide from it. We need to face it. We need to keep working to find solutions individually. We need to keep working to find solutions tactically.
“I thought tonight we tried a lot of different ways. We tried to go longer into the front, we tried to cross it, we tried to go into feet, we tried to go in behind, we tried to go early and aggressive with our substitutes. We had 15 shots from inside the penalty box, 21 shots in total and we didn’t manage to find a goal.
“I think in isolation, if I'm honest, a draw tonight, 0-0 away on a Tuesday night, when a team sets up like that against you and then has threats on the counter-attack, a draw isn’t a disaster. But the accumulation of draws makes it a disappointing run.”
Barton was happy to admit that he altered his approach to ensure Rovers “stopped the bleeding” of four straight defeats, but couldn’t have been more proud of his team and the collective effort they put in.
Addressing their goals conceded - Rovers rank 22nd in League One - is a huge challenge for the manager across this latter stage of the season and to have thwarted Ipswich is a sign of progress that gives them something to build on ahead of the visit of Burton Albion this weekend.
“We’ve had to go with a slightly different strategy than we normally employ but then when the ball hits the angle of post and crossbar I thought it had gone in, and I thought we got the other side of it,” Barton said.
“If we open up against them we make ourselves incredibly vulnerable, the state we’re in, so we worked on making it tough for them; we had a couple of triggers that we were looking to press off.
"But that’s all coaching theory and is about what I was trying to get them to do, it is over to the lads on a matchday and, to a man, they were superb. And that includes the lads who came into the game, they kept following their instructions, backing each other up and it was a really good team performance.
“They’ve got so much pace in the wide areas in Leif Davis and Wes Burns and then they have an embarrassment of luxury in the No9 position - two in each position - George Hirst and Ladapo, Kayden Jackson you can argue, then you’ve got Chaplin and Harness. Broadhead comes on who they’ve just paid £1.5m for, so they have an embarrassment of riches and it can be tricky sometimes to keep that many good players happy.
“Because, as we’re finding out, there’s only ever 11 happy lads in your team. If you’ve got the amount of players Kieran’s got, it can make it really tricky, Everybody thinks it's each because on Football Manager you just drop them in and out of the team and none of them go away moaning or kicking off. But in reality keeping highly tuned professional footballers all on the same wavelength when they get disappointed, is really tricky.”
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