Ipswich Town manager Kieran McKenna rued his side's failure to deal with set plays following their 3-2 defeat to Manchester United at Old Trafford on Wednesday night.
All three of United's goals were crafted from set-pieces, with Harry Maguire heading in directly from a corner just after half-time to seal all three points for the home side. The contest was level pegging at 2-2 at the interval.
After falling behind after just four minutes when Jaden Philogene pounced on a defensive mix up between Andre Onana and Patrick Dorgu, United responded via an own-goal from Sam Morsy, who headed in a Bruno Fernandes free-kick delivery, and Matthijs de Ligt, who scrambled the ball home after Ipswich failed to deal with a corner.
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United's third was the cleanest of the three, with Maguire making firm contact with Fernandes' corner to head the ball down into the ground and past Tractor Boys goalkeeper Alex Palmer. And in the opinion of McKenna, set plays made all the difference.
"Tonight the goal was always going to come from a set play," said the Ipswich boss. "We weren't able to deal with United's strength and physicality in the penalty box.
"So not giving away the set plays and defending them with everything we had was always going to be key in the second half and we didn't do that within a minute of the restart.
"That gave the stadium all the energy it needs. It gives the opposition all the energy they needed. Second half they showed their experience, showed their quality. They were stronger than us at both ends of the pitch.
"They still had three, big, high quality centre-halves to defend their goal, while their two centre forwards were stronger than us on long ball."
United were reduced to ten men shortly before half-time when Dorgu was sent-off for a bad challenge on Omari Hutchinson. Ipswich drew level almost immediately and looked set to come out for the second half with the bit between their teeth.
However, they did not do enough to threaten Onana in the United goal to capitalise on their numerical advantage.
McKenna added: "We weren't able to get any foothold in the game. We didn't manage the situation well in the second half. We did everything we didn't want to do.
"We gave away free-kicks, we gave the crowd energy by getting involved in silly things, we lost our shape and we didn't defend the moments they had anywhere near well enough. It's a really poor second half from us and a frustrating night."
