Kieran McKenna makes honest admission about Ipswich Town’s prospects after Birmingham City draw

Add as preferred source on Google

Ipswich Town boss Kieran McKenna reflected on a hard-fought point against newly promoted Birmingham City.

The 2025/26 Championship season kicked off on Friday evening with an eagerly anticipated clash between Birmingham City and Ipswich Town.

Both sides headed into the affair after polar opposite seasons, with the Blues buoyed by their record-breaking League One title win, and Ipswich having suffered relegation from the Premier League.

Birmingham and Ipswich will be hoping to impact the promotion race this season, and both teams got a point on the board following the 1-1 draw.

After the game, Tractor Boys boss Kieran McKenna made some honest comments about Ipswich’s chances for success this season as things stand.

• READ MORE: Chris Davies drops hint on next Birmingham City signing as he pinpoints three weak areas in squad

Kieran McKenna admits Ipswich Town have ‘work to do’

Birmingham held Ipswich to a draw in controversial fashion in the Championship curtain-raiser.

Jay Stansfield broke the deadlock for Birmingham after profiting from a rebound from Kyogo Furuhashi’s chip which hit the post.

Ipswich were awarded a highly debatable penalty in the closing minutes of extra time, which was dispatched by George Hirst to see both sides share the spoils.

The Tractor Boys were fortunate to come away with a point in the end, and McKenna admitted that there is “a lot of work to do” to get Ipswich into automatic promotion contention.

He told Sky Sports: “We’ve got work to do with the group on the training pitch.

“It’s a short turnaround between Premier League and the Championship, it’s still been a short pre-season, so we’ve got work to do on the training ground.

“We’ve got new players to integrate, and to still get up to full speed. We know we’ve got some incomings and outgoings that we need to resolve.

“Our squad needs to be stronger if we want to consider ourselves one of the top teams in the division.

“We know we’re a long way off where we could be this season, we know we have a lot of work to do.”

• READ MORE: Mark Clattenburg gives verdict on whether Ipswich Town should have been awarded penalty vs Birmingham City

Kieran McKenna comments on Chuba Akpom to Ipswich Town

Birmingham and Ipswich met after a week of transfer battling for the signature of Ajax forward Chuba Akpom.

After the transfer pendulum swung both ways, Ipswich won the race for Akpom at the expense of the Blues, but no official announcement has been made yet.

When probed about Akpom, McKenna added: “I don’t know, hopefully, but there’s no announcements or anything confirmed yet.”

Hirst was isolated for much of the evening, with the striker having the least touches (22) of any outfield player to play 90 minutes and losing the most duels (10) throughout the match.

Given Akpom scored 29 goals for Middlesbrough in his most recent Championship season before his move to Ajax, McKenna will be desperate to see the forward officially sign soon to help improve on Friday evening’s lacklustre attacking display.