Town boss Kieran McKenna reluctantly reflected on 2023 - with one match still to play, against QPR at Portman Road tomorrow now - and admitted it’s been a really good year.

The Blues won promotion from League One in April having gone on a remarkable run in the second half of the 2022/23 season, winning 13 out of 14 before securing promotion with a 6-0 thumping of Exeter City on a Portman Road afternoon which will live long in the memory.

Since then, Town have taken the Championship by storm and sit in second at just past the campaign’s halfway mark with promotion to the Premier League in their sights in 2024.

Along the way, the club has created innumerable new records, among them acheving 50 points the earliest in their history and setting a new home league goals record of 71 for a calendar year, which could be extended further against the West Londoners on Friday evening.

The Blues have netted in all 23 home matches in 2023 with a goal tomorrow creating another new record. Home and away, Town have netted 103 times in the league and picked up 102 points.

“It's obviously been a really good year,” McKenna smiled. “There's no doubt about it. But I hope you appreciate it doesn't feel like the week to reflect.

“We've had lots of different milestones. We've just passed two years. We've had different milestones along the way. One hundred games not long ago, this is the last game of 2023.

“But it's been less than 48 hours since the last game, and it's going to be less than 72 hours till the next game. 

“So we'd love to get a good performance tomorrow night. We can't wait to be back at Portman Road on a Friday night in front of the lights. It's a game to really enjoy.

“We're going to work. We've worked really hard to prepare and recover as well as we can. We'll go and try and deliver a performance that everyone can get behind again and, hopefully, it gives us a result.

“If that means that we finish off the year well and we send the supporters at Portman Road happy going into the new year, then that would be great.”

McKenna is pleased with the way the players, many of whom he inherited from former boss Paul Cook following the current Chesterfield boss’s Demolition Man summer, have taken to his style of play and progressed over the last couple of seasons from mid-table in League One to second in the Championship.

“There's such a large part of the group we've been here over the last two years,” he reflected. “I think maybe you go through the team that played the majority of the game against Leicester, with Kayden [Jackson] involved in that as well, I don't know what the exact numbers are, but I would have thought almost everyone was here for the first half of the League One season last year even. Not Jack Taylor but not many others.

“A lot of players have been on that journey. There are a couple of things that are brilliant about the job. One is when you see a team playing a reflection of the football that you believe in and that you want to represent as the identity of the football club.

“And when you see players implementing that on the pitch and you see it against bigger and better clubs over the last two years and are still sticking to and developing that plan, that's something to be proud of. 

“When you see players who were maybe at a different stage in their career two years ago now performing and operating really well at the top end of the Championship, that's something that we enjoy and take a lot of pride in.

“But as I always say, it doesn't stop. We don't rest where we are. We know we're in the middle of a really big season. We know there are lots of challenges and obstacles ahead. I know that for me and the staff, we want to keep improving, developing the team, the style of play and our identity.

“For the players, they want to as well and also individually, they want to keep progressing in their careers and see if they can keep making further steps, as so many of them have done over the last two years.”

Photo: TWTD

Bert added 17:51 - Dec 28 Our manager is a diplomat, a leader, a man manager and a rather nice bloke too !
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Michael101 added 17:58 - Dec 28 Been a good year, bit of a understatement.
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ArnieM added 18:14 - Dec 28 Can wait to see what his exceptional year is going to like then! WEVE GOT SUPER MCKENNAAAAA….
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Suffolkboy added 19:02 - Dec 28 Bert ! — all of those things and anymore too ! We have been amazingly fortunate in choosing KM ,but no doubt the search parameters were carefully drawn ! A Super Blue who we must hope to retain ! COYB
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