Cifuentes: Ipswich A Team With Clear Identity

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Cifuentes: Ipswich A Team With Clear Identity

Martí Cifuentes has called on his Leicester City players to impose their own game on Ipswich Town as we host the Tractor Boys this Saturday.

2025-12-13T08:20+00:00

by Sam Stevens

Published

13 Dec, 2025

from LCFC Training Ground

Cifuentes: Ipswich A Team With Clear Identity

Martí Cifuentes has called on his Leicester City players to impose their own game on Ipswich Town as we host the Tractor Boys this Saturday.

Sam Stevens

2025-12-13T08:20+00:00

Cifuentes: Ipswich A Team With Clear Identity

Martí Cifuentes has called on his Leicester City players to impose their own game on Ipswich Town as we host the Tractor Boys this Saturday.

Sam Stevens

2025-12-13T08:20+00:00

Cifuentes: Ipswich A Team With Clear Identity

Martí Cifuentes has called on his Leicester City players to impose their own game on Ipswich Town as we host the Tractor Boys this Saturday.

Sam Stevens

2025-12-13T08:20+00:00

Cifuentes: Ipswich A Team With Clear Identity

Martí Cifuentes has called on his Leicester City players to impose their own game on Ipswich Town as we host the Tractor Boys this Saturday.

Sam Stevens

2025-12-13T08:20+00:00

It’s a 3pm GMT kick-off at King Power Stadium as Kieran McKenna’s in-form Ipswich travel to the East Midlands to tackle a City side who themselves have earned four points from a possible six, both away from home.

Speaking to the media on Friday, just over 24 hours out from our next Sky Bet Championship challenge, the Manager provided his thoughts on our opponents and an insight into the team’s objectives.

‘An interesting test’

Ipswich have lost just one of their last 10 games and are coming into this clash on the back of wins over high-flying Coventry City and Stoke City, repairing an indifferent start to the campaign to currently sit fourth in the table.

“They’re definitely a good team with a good manager,” Cifuentes said. “Perhaps the start of the season was not easy for them either, but they’ve got a lot of quality.

“Now, in the last couple of games, they’ve got good results against good teams, so they’re probably high in confidence. But I think it’s going to be an interesting test, an interesting game, with two teams that last season were playing in the Premier League.

“They’re a good team definitely. We need to make sure that we impose our style and we’re aware about their strengths.”

‘A team with clear patterns’

Cifuentes has also been impressed, during his analysis of the Tractor Boys, with their versatility – although he admits that’s no surprise given McKenna’s qualities as a manager and the length of his spell at Portman Road.

“Kieran McKenna has done a fantastic job there,” he added. “Obviously, the fact that he’s been working with many of those players for a long time, it creates a solid foundation and identity.

“They’re a team that has clear patterns in the way they attack with dangerous players on the wings, with different options in the striker position.

“They can accelerate well, can attack on the counter really well. Defensively they are finding the rhythm as well, in terms of how they want to go from mid to high press, how they want to recover to then have the option to go and counter, it’s a good team, a complete team.

“It’s quite clear to see that, perhaps in the beginning of the season, they were not picking the results up, but were still creating a lot of chances and now they are in this rhythm. We need to have a good game and I’m sure tomorrow, in front of our fans, we can do it.”

‘We’re in this process’

Although four points from two away games is a positive return – beating Derby County 3-1 and then drawing 2-2 at Bristol City – each game had clear similarities. Leicester started brightly and went ahead, before sitting back and having to defend in the latter stages.

Cifuentes is looking to improve this, to get the team maintaining attacking momentum through the 90 minutes: “Since day one, I said we’re in this process where we’re trying to change certain things to get where we want to get.

“Sometimes you need to grow through difficult periods as well. I think the group is very committed and we are on the same page in terms of what we want to do.

“I’ve spoken about when we’re having a good moment to capitalise, something we have done in the last games, two very good first halves.

“Now we need to be better in keeping that momentum. At Bristol, they scored immediately at the start of the second half, which obviously emotionally had an impact on the development of the game.

“But that’s why we tried to make some proactive decisions. It was not easy to take the decision to drop JJ (Jordan James) because of how important he is for us as a player. But we knew, especially in this period where we have injuries, we were thinking on the bench about how we could help to get this change of momentum, this consistency.

“That’s why we tried to bring a striker, just to send a positive message to the team. Sometimes, as a manager, you find a different solution.

“Perhaps we could have done Bade [Aluko] and then bring Hamza [Choudhury] into midfield, but at the end, you are taking out a midfielder and then putting in a defender, so that can be a message to the players: ‘Okay, now we need to just defend the lead’.

“Instead, the approach was completely the opposite. We’re always trying, and we’re very aligned with the players, that the aim is to attack and chase the next one. Sometimes the opposition does well as well, credit to Bristol, who did really well. The aim for finding this consistency is the same for all of us and I’m sure we’re going to get there.”

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