Ipswich Town manager Kieran McKenna says 'the pressure is on Plymouth' after his team's winning run continued tonight.

The top-two chasing Blues cruised to a 3-0 victory against Accrington Stanley at Portman Road, making it four wins on the spin and five successive clean sheets.

Town remain five points adrift of second-place Plymouth though after the Devon side came from behind to beat Derby 2-1 at Home Park. 

"Our focus is on our results," said McKenna.

"We can't control what's going on around us. Our points total (69) is really good. I think that leaves us one point off our total from last season with 11 games still to play.

"We're in a really healthy position. There are two teams above us who have had fantastic seasons in terms of accumulating points, but there are lots of teams below us who would love to be where we are. 

"All we can do is keep trying as best we can to win games. There are still 33 points to play for. The pressure is going to be on Plymouth in front with the pack behind them chasing.

"They've come out the right side of an awful lot of fine margins and an awful lot of decisions. Credit to them for that. All we can is concentrate on ourselves and keep performing."

On tonight's win, in which Nathan Broadhead, Kayden Jackson and Kyle Edwards all scored, McKenna said: "It's another clean sheet, three goals at home, a couple of very good team goals and a good individual goal - so there are lots of positives to take.

"The first point to make about the first goal is that it starts from the boys' bravery on build-up. We're playing against an aggressive team tonight who came to press us.

"From Christian Walton onwards we had to be brave in playing through that. We know that if we do that it creates space higher up the pitch and we have the players to exploit that space.

"For Christian to be willing to entice the press and play it into tight areas where players have pressure on them takes a lot of work and development.

"We haven't conceded a goal from that scenario yet this season and we've conceded the least number of chances in the league from build-up.

"So the bit of that goal that probably goes unseen is how we create that space. 

"How we create those sort of spaces and connect higher up the field to be the topscorers in the league is, for me, probably something that the boys don't quite get enough credit for."

On Jackson, who was a constant threat down the right, McKenna said: "I thought him and Janoi (Donacien), both coming into the team having not started many games recently, were terrific. They are both such good preofessionals. They train and prepare right every day and are always ready to help the team.

 

"Kayden I've spoken about so many times. He's such a fantatsic human, such a team player, such a learner. I think he's such an asset to the football club and such a dangerous player. He's probably been unlucky, to be honest, from the form of Wes (Burns) and others.

"Every time he gets his opportunity in a number of different roles he knows how to take them as long as the team is set-up to utilise his strengths."

On Edwards, who wrapped up the win with a fine free-kick in stoppage-time after Accrington keeper Lukas Jensen had been dismissed for a foul on Harry Clarke, McKenna said: "I'm delighted for him, everyone is. He's a popular man in the dressing room.

"He's different other players in the squad. He's our best one-v-one player, he's unique in his skillset and he's got a role to play. 

"He had a massive impact coming on against Cambridge. We might not have got the point we did in that game without that. 

"Of course he wants to start more games, as everybody does, but he knows it's a big and strong squad. He knows what his strengths are and he knows how he can utilise them in different game states to help us. He's really buying into that."

Town now head to fifth-place Bolton Wanderers on Saturday.

"It's a nice way to go into the game," said McKenna. 

"It's a really good game. It was one of the most challenging games we had last season when I first took over (Town lost 2-0 away) and they've improved this season.

"We had a really good match against them on the first day of the season (1-1 at Portman Road) and we've both gone on to have strong seasons as a lot of people probably predicted after watching that amtch.

"It will be good to go there and challenge ourselves against a good team.

"We'll go there with belief, but also with humility knowing we'll have to work hard and probably play better than we did tonight.

"If we perform we know we've got a good chance to go there and win."