Ipswich Town manager Kieran McKenna says his team need to learn a lesson in game management following this afternoon's 4-1 defeat at Manchester City.

The Blues took an early lead through Sammie Szmodics, but then repeatedly shot themselves in the foot to concede three times in six minutes.

"We got off to a fantastic start and scored a great goal in the transition," reflected McKenna.

"That was the exact type of goal we wanted to score today, with their line being high and Sammie and Omari (Hutchinson) making runs in behind. He finishes it off well.

"Then of course the game was lost in a five minute spell where there are some big lessons to be learned. I'm sure we'll do that.

"The first goal is a penalty where it's not a very dangerous situation. Of course it's a one-v-one, you know you're going to have to face them at this level, but being disciplined enough to not give away the penalty is important. 

"If we had have managed to hold onto a 1-0 lead for 10 or 15 minutes I think the base was there for us to have a really competitive game today. I think everyone was comfortable with the plan we came in with. But 1-0 goes to 3-1 in the space of a matter of seconds and the feel of the game changes completely. 

"What I think was positive was that from 3-1 we managed to get back hold of the game. We managed to show resilience, the team stayed together and we went from the 16th minute to the 88th minute without conceding.

"Of course they had chances in the first half, but in the second half we defended well as a team and didn't give away too many opportunities."

Town had strong penalty shouts just before half-time when Leif Davis appeared to be barged over in the box by Savinho.

"In my eyes we had a clear penalty," said McKenna. "We could have gone in at 3-2. That's a really hard one to understand why it wasn't given, especially with the (VAR) intervention on the first goal.

"I promised myself I wouldn't speak too often about VAR coming into this league, but I don't understand why the fourth official gave a signal that it had been turned down for a VAR check.

"The only difference, you could say, is that for the first one the play has stopped, while the situation after our penalty appeal saw City keep the ball for a minute and it's easier then to forget about it.

"When I saw it live I thought it was nailed on and I've seen one replay where I thought Leif had one arm being pulled and another defender swipe across his legs. From the angle I've seen it's hard to see how it's not given."

Having lost 2-0 at home to Liverpool last weekend, McKenna was asked if he'd seen enough from his side to believe they can compete against lesser teams at this level.

"Yeah, I have," he replied. "Last week we made it a really competitive game for 60 minutes against Liverpool. We showed the atmosphere and intensity that we can play with at Portman Road and how difficult we can make it for teams coming there.

"Today we didn't have as much of the game, for sure, but there were positives.

"This was always going to be a difficult day to face City. They've had a full training week and this is their first game back here since winning the league.

"But we've also scored our first goal and we've shown in very small periods of the game that we can take the ball and play bravely. It wasn't enough today. There were maybe four/five moments like that. We have to turn that into eight, nine, 10 and many more moments.

"I thought there were a lot of individuals performances that were positive. 

"We'll have taken a lot from the first two games. We would like to be sitting here with more points on the board, but we knew with the fixtures that was always going to be difficult."