Town boss Kieran McKenna felt there were plenty of positives to be taken from the Blues’ 2-1 FA Cup third-round victory over League One Blackpool at Portman Road, his 200th game in charge of the club.

Jaden Philogene and Jacob Greaves scored in each half for the Blues, who had more than enough chances to make the scoreline very much more comfortable, before Ashley Fletcher netted an injury time consolation for the visitors from a penalty which video evidence suggested was wrongly awarded against Greaves, the central defender having won the ball.

“I thought there were positives out there, for sure,” McKenna said. “It was a really useful game for us. Minutes for certain players, rhythm for other players, we’ve come through it with no injuries.

“It was tactically quite a good game for us because we’ve got quite a lot of back five teams coming up in the league, so some references that we can take from it.

“Scored a really good goal in the first half, I thought we generally moved the ball well, got to really good areas, some really good connections.

“Of course, we still need to be more efficient to go and get that second goal earlier with the number of opportunities that we had, and the opportunities to create better opportunities when we get into big situations and the decision and final pass still can be better.

“We got the second goal with a set play and the game should be done there at 2-0 really, before the referee decided to jump in in the 94th minute and make it an interesting last minute.

“It should have been 2-0 and we should have got to 2-0 earlier in the game, but some positives to get there.

“I think a useful game for us, to be honest. A good one for us to look back on on Monday and pick the things that were good and pick the things we can improve.”

Top scorer Philogene took his tally for the season to 10, all at home.

“It’s a really good finish, a really good move from the team to set it up well,” he said. “Jack Clarke with his little carry, lovely simplicity from Ben [Johnson] and it’s what we need more of in terms of our stuff around the edge of the box - sometimes just picking the simplest decision, the right decision and executing a really good detail, which he did with the assist pass and Jaden tucks it away really well.”

McKenna started Clarke as a number 10 rather than in his primary role on the left or on the right, where the former Sunderland man has also started this season.

“I thought lots of positives, it wasn’t an easy game to get on the ball as a 10 because they were so deep and so compact in the first half, so it wasn’t easy to get through to him, so he had to drop out a little bit deeper to get on the ball sometimes,” the Northern Irishman said.

“But some really good moments of ball-carrying, the goal for example, some ball carries on the transition as well.

“We know that anywhere we can get him in the centre of the pitch especially when he can carry the ball in both directions, he can be a big threat and his last pass and his decision-making is good in the final third.

“Another good option for us, something that we’ve used in some moments in games. Good to see it from the start today and I’m sure there will be moments when we have that option in the rest of the season as well.”

Regarding Greaves, who got in the way of most of Blackpool’s best opportunities before being harshly penalised for the spot-kick in the dying seconds of injury time, McKenna said: “He had a couple of big interventions defensively. We didn’t deal with the direct play as well as we would have liked today, to be honest, so he had to make a couple of blocks when we wouldn’t really have wanted to be in that position as a team.

“But he was there to make them whenever he needed to and stepped in well with the ball and scored a goal from a set play as well.

“I know how good Jacob is. I think we have three top, top, top centre-halves for the level and the competition there is fierce but I’ve got no doubt about Jacob’s quality and the future that we want him to have at the club.”

McKenna spurned an opportunity to rest holding midfielder Azor Matusiwa, who has started all bar one Championship game this season, with the Dutchman again playing the full 90 minutes.

“He’s in a really good rhythm and sometimes when you’re in a rhythm, especially in a position like that where you’re not sprinting end-to-end all game, you’re better off keeping it going,” he explained.

“From [the New Year’s Day game against] Oxford to [next week’s opponents] Blackburn’s two weeks and a couple of days and he wanted to go again and keep the rhythm and keep playing, and sometimes when you break that rhythm, that’s when you can also get issues.

“He wanted to play, we were happy to play him and I thought he kept his rhythm and delivered a good performance again.”

Looking ahead to Monday evening’s fourth-round draw, McKenna said: “I think a home tie or nice one for the away fans in terms of a Premier League club would be nice this year.

“Let’s see who we get, but I think we’d like to play a Premier League team at some point this year, so we’ll see what comes out of the hat.”

Photo: TWTD