Ipswich Town are potentially just two games away from an automatic promotion to the Premier League just one season on from coming back up to the Championship from League One.

Kieran McKenna has been the driving force behind this surprising success. As the Suffolk-based team approaches their final away game of the season against Coventry City, the former Manchester United coach has been giving interviews to the media.

Ipswich and McKenna face huge pressure after Hull slip-up

It makes sense that McKenna is under intense pressure to make sure Ipswich capitalizes on their rivals for promotion, Leeds United, making a mistake against QPR on Friday.

The West Yorkshire team was defeated 4-0 by QPR at Loftus Road, and as a result, they were unable to build a lead against Ipswich, who were playing on Saturday.

But the Tractor Boys themselves would falter, allowing themselves to be pegged back more than once in their Saturday night start 3-3 tie with Hull City.

This ultimately means that the Tractor Boys will need to win to put themselves firmly in the driver’s seat for automatic promotion coming into Tuesday evening’s match against Coventry.

McKenna issues warning ahead of Sky Blues meeting

During the pre-game press conference, McKenna acknowledged that his team is currently struggling and that they are playing a team that recently faced a Premier League powerhouse in the FA Cup semifinals.

“They’re an excellent side, no doubt about it; they’ve shown that in the cup competitions and in their form in the league, especially probably after the first quarter of the season,” Mark Robins stated via TWTD in reference to his team’s caliber.

““I’m sure they’re going to want to end off strongly.”

In his interviews with the media, he mentioned that Ipswich would be playing against an injured team, and that this might be exploited. He went on, “They have a deep squad with a ton of good players, so I’m sure they’ll be motivated to do well on Tuesday, even though they have some players out.”

“We’ll do our best to get ready and make sure we’re ready to perform as we want to do again.”

He was also keen to reiterate that despite the Sky Blues having nothing to play for, they won’t be easy turnovers, “We know they’re a very good side, we’ll know they’ll be motivated to finish off the season on a high.

“We’ll be preparing for a really good Coventry side and that’s certainly what we expect as they are at home against a team who are competing at the top end of the division and we certainly know that they’re going to try and make it hard for us.

McKenna wants to repeat the mentality of previous run-in

With the promotion from League One still very much fresh in mind for a lot of the squad that were there for it, plus McKenna’s, there is hope that the experience from it can be beneficial now.

Highlighting the experience gained during last season’s League One run-in, in which the Tractor Boys won 13 out of 14, McKenna said, “I can say from what I see, I feel around the group, from what I’m seeing on the pitch, I don’t see us playing with tension.

“That is really important at this stage of the season. I see us playing with bravery, with confidence, with great intensity still and that’s really important.

“So many of the group have been through this experience with a big three-game week to try and achieve a big goal and they’ve handled it really well before and I think they’re handling it really well at the moment.”

McKenna then seemingly feels his squad have what it takes to push their game-in-hand advantage home and put themselves firmly in pole position in the race for automatic promotion, but with Coventry knowing exactly how to handle big games, could there be another potential slip-up brewing for the Tractor Boys?