The positives that Ipswich will take into the Nottingham Forest game

Kieran McKenna has warned Ipswich their improving Premier League form will count for nothing if they do not build upon it.

Promoted Town followed up their impressive first win of the season at Tottenham before the international break with a hard-fought 1-1 draw with Manchester United last weekend, yet remain inside the top-flight relegation zone – if only on goal difference – as they prepare for Saturday’s trip to Nottingham Forest.

McKenna is confident progress is being made, but knows the only reward that counts is measured in the hard currency of points.

He told a press conference: “You look at the performances in both games there were a lot of positives, but it’s up to us to continue that.

“Our last two games have generally been positive results, I think the couple of games before that have been very positive performances where we should have had more points, so we feel like we are in pretty good form.

“But it’s about the next game and a tough game against Nottingham Forest on Saturday and getting ready for that.

“We will take the little bits from the last couple of games that will be relevant but this is a completely different type of game, different challenge, different opponent and we need to step it up again.”

Ipswich trailed to Marcus Rashford’s second-minute strike, but demonstrated real resilience to get themselves back on terms through Omari Hutchinson before threatening to take all three points.

However, McKenna is refusing to read too much into an encouraging fightback, for now at least.

He said: “It’s one game, but it was a good game. We feel like we could have won it on the balance of chances. We were the team certainly more likely to win it.

“But we are not too interested in making grand summaries from one game. It was a pretty good performance, it’s another point, but it’s onto the next game and all eyes on Nottingham Forest.

“The time for taking stock will be a bit further down the line and at the end of the season. For now, it is just about focusing on the next game of the season and concentrating on our next performance. That’s what we have done since Sunday finished.

“We are happy that we are competing well and generally been hard to beat. In terms of being consistently competitive in almost every match and in the early stages of the season as a newly promoted team, I think that’s a big priority.

“We would like to have a few more points and we think that, especially with quite a few of the home draws, we feel like we could or should have won one or two of those at least.

“But there are positives there and we are going to try and build on those. But with all these things, you can’t count on anything really. Come 3pm on Saturday, it all starts again and we have to fight for a new result.”