Christmas celebrations may have been somewhat muted at Portman Road in the wake of Ipswich’s final two contests before December 25, which saw the Tractor Boys run out of fuel in a 2-2 draw with East Anglian rivals Norwich City and an embarrassing 4-0 loss to Leeds United.
The visit of league-leading Leicester on Boxing Day offered McKenna’s confidence-sapped troops a prime opportunity to blow the race for glory wide open, although the Foxes were on course to widen the gap when Stephy Mavididi curled home a delightful first-half opener.
However, after Cameron Burgess was controversially not penalised for a penalty-box barge on Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall – who has since made his feelings clear on the matter – Sam Morsy levelled for Ipswich in fortuitous circumstances, as his speculative strike deflected off of Ricardo Pereira’s foot and Jannik Vestergaard’s head on its way in.
That 93rd-minute intervention ensured that the second-placed Tractor Boys would prevent Leicester from increasing their six-point lead at the summit of the standings, although Southampton now have just a five-point gap to make up to McKenna’s team, and no other side in the top half of the table has also failed to win any of their last three games.
The two-goal stalemate with Leicester also marked the eighth time on the bounce where Ipswich have both scored and conceded in a Championship home fixture, and while only Preston North End and Blackburn Rovers possess a worse defensive record on familiar territory, the Tractor Boys’ 33 strikes at the correct end is unrivalled.
After experiencing the obligatory new manager bounce in the QPR hotseat, only losing one of his opening seven games and even stringing a three-match winning sequence together, Marti Cifuentes has found the going a lot tougher in recent matchdays.
As is the case with Ipswich, the R’s also gear up for their final fixture of 2023 aiming to pick up their first win in four attempts, having slumped to their third consecutive Championship defeat during their Boxing Day stopover in Millwall.
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Two added-time strikes made the difference, as Tom Bradshaw finished at the back stick just before the half-time whistle blew, and with mere moments remaining at The Den, Murray Wallace managed to bundle the ball home to leave the 22nd-placed visitors five points adrift of safety.
Following another chastening afternoon, a blunt Cifuentes insisted that he is not some “Messiah” able to perform miracles with his QPR unit, who have been told to look at themselves in the mirror as they aim to avoid repeating October’s four-game losing streak in the second tier.
A meagre record of just one goal from their last 360 minutes of football will do little to aid QPR in their quest for victory on Friday, and their five-game unbeaten run against Ipswich came to an end in August, where Conor Chaplin made the net bulge in a 1-0 Tractor Boys triumph.
