The Blues were held by promotion rivals Millwall at Portman Road, leaving both sides with 69 points. Town, who are in third, have superior goal difference and a game in hand, while second-place Middlesbrough were held to a goalless draw against Blackburn Rovers, extending their winless run to three matches.
It sets up for a mouth-watering finale to the campaign, and while McKenna is adamant that he still isn’t looking at the league table, he’s confident that Ipswich are well-placed to challenge for automatic promotion to the Premier League with eight games to go.
“Honestly, even still at this point, we’re not really thinking as much about the table,” he explained. “It’s just seeing where we’re at as a group and I think there’s some big positives to take.
“That’s eight games in a really busy run for us [from the 5-3 defeat at Wrexham onwards]. Obviously, we had a few days training this week but we’re coming off a period where we had some really important players missing that whole chunk, and some unjust suspensions.
“A few players out there today are carrying injuries and ideally we wouldn’t be using them, but because we’re missing other players, they’re putting themselves out there for the team.
The Blues have eight games left to climb into the top two after their 1-1 draw with Millwall (Image: PA)
“It’s been a challenging period and a big positive I take is the first half performance today, because when you think about going into big games at the end of the season and how you manage the tension and just go out there and deliver on performance.
“I think that was a great template for how to do it in the first half today. If we can execute better on the last bit, then we give ourselves a great chance to win some important games.
“On the other hand, we know there’s other good teams and Millwall are one of them. Games can change really, really quickly and no-one’s going to make it easy for us. Millwall found a way to make it more difficult in that second half.
“It’s going to be a challenge, hopefully it’ll be exciting. We know we’ve got big games, big games at our stadium, tough away games, big derby match [v Norwich City]. There’s lots to look forward to. I think we’re glad to have the break now.
“We have to get some important players back, get some work into those who haven’t had it through injury or are not having as many minutes.
“Hopefully we’ll be in a strong position when we come back.”