Kieran McKenna: 'it was hard to be certain' about the position of MU's players

Kieran McKenna admitted Ipswich Town were challenged by Ruben Amorim's tactical changes at Manchester United.

Amorim's success as a head coach has been underpinned by his 3-4-3 formation and he had limited time training at Carrington to prepare the players to face Ipswich at Portman Road.

The 39-year-old had just two training sessions with the full group after the international break and has warned United will have to "suffer" before his new system will be successful.

But there were some positives to take from Sunday's 1-1 draw with Ipswich. United made the perfect start to the game when taking the lead through Marcus Rashford after just 80 seconds and Amorim's system caused problems for McKenna's side in the opening exchanges.

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Amad started at right wing-back - he provided a brilliant assist for Rashford - and Diogo Dalot started on the other side, which McKenna admitted caused some confusion.

McKenna reflected on the match in his post-match press conference and admitted 'it was hard to be certain' about the positioning of United's players after Amorim's changes.

"I think we certainly could have won it. So you could look at it that way. It depends on your perspective. I think we were certainly the better team in the first half overall," he said.

"I thought as the first half went on we really grew in ascendancy and went into half-time in real dominance. But the second half, Man United had some good periods of control as well. We had to defend on shape and show good discipline, although we still had a couple of big chances to win it.

"So we certainly could have won it. I think when you concede an early goal to Man United with the motivation that they were playing with today, the game could also get away from you in another direction. So the main positive is it didn't and we were morally competitive through the game."

McKenna continued: "It was a challenge for us going into it in terms of preparation to be fair. And there's certain things that you could predict but certain things not. Especially after an international break, not being sure with injuries. So yeah, that side of it made it a challenge.

"I think that was a challenge at the start of the game to be honest because you weren't sure going into the game what the position would be. Of course, you get the line-up but you don't know will Diallo play a wing-back, will Garnacho play a wing-back. It wasn't easy to be certain.

"So it was probably a few times in the first five, ten minutes where we were not caught out but where it was hard to be certain about the positioning of the opposition.

"And it took us a little while to get on top of that. But I thought after probably the first ten minutes of the first half, we'd done exactly that and we started to get on top of it. And the intensity of our pressure and the speed of some of our combination players really took control of the game."