Kieran McKenna makes honest admission about Elland Road crowd turning in Leeds United v Ipswich Town clash
Kieran McKenna acknowledged the Elland Road crowd could work for or against his Ipswich Town side in their eagerly anticipated clash with Leeds United on Saturday (21 December).
Third-place Leeds welcome Ipswich to West Yorkshire looking to close a 10-point gap to the second-place Tractor Boys, who face top-of-the-table Leicester City on Boxing Day.
The Elland Road faithful are known for their vociferous backing of the team and Ipswich boss McKenna acknowledged it could go either way when giving an honest reply to a question about whether he will be looking for his side to make the home fans turn.
“We speak about the context of the opposition – where they’re at as a team, the crowd and the atmosphere – ahead of every game. This will be no different.” he said in quotes reported by the East Anglian Daily Times (21 December).
“Of course they’re a big club. I’m pretty sure they wouldn’t have expected us to be in this position at this stage of the season. We can go there in a really positive frame of mind to go and take the game on and focus on performing as well as we can without too much pressure on ourselves.
“If you can perform well, stay in the game, impose yourself on the game in different ways, then sometimes the home crowd can work for or against the home team. We’re always aware of that.”
Make it a cauldron of noise
It was a very diplomatic answer from the Ipswich boss to be fair, who rightly pointed out that any home crowd can either be a source of encouragement for a team or quick to get on their backs if things are not going well.
This weekend should be an absolute cauldron of noise in a fixture that is one of the biggest in the English football calendar this weekend, with Leeds badly in need of a win to make sure Ipswich do not pull further clear.
Daniel Farke – not a popular figure with Ipswich fans due to his past with Norwich City – will be wanting to give the fans something to cheer and he will be wanting the stands to really get behind the team in a huge clash.
There is a scenario where by this time next week, Leeds are only four points adrift of Ipswich. Of course, they might not be as well, so the fans really are going to be the 12th man in this one.
In other Leeds United news, Junior Firpo is in last-chance saloon at Elland Road.