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Luongo explains how Town have upped their approach this season, based upon Burnley’s stats . Which is interesting because surely that’s really based on Man City’s approach given who is Burnley’s manager? We certainly okay a style not too dissimilar to MC, albeit at a lower individual technical level. Exciting times for us Town fans ..

Nicked from EADT:

Intensity and effort have been key to Ipswich Town's perfect start to the campaign - and midfielder Massimo Luongo says it all started in the team's gruelling pre-season.


The Blues spent a week training under the scorching sun in Austria before embarking on a brutal schedule which saw them play two games in a day on multiple occasions, travel to Preston for a midweek match, play Premier League Luton Town and battle German giants RB Leipzig and Werder Bremen in the Innsbruck Cup.

And Luongo explained that the squad embraced the challenge of getting better right from their first day back in training, starting with statistics which showed the levels Town would need to reach to be successful.

East Anglian Daily Times: Massimo Luongo has been immense in midfield to start the season
Massimo Luongo has been immense in midfield to start the season (Image: Ross Halls)

"Everything was escalated because we’ve got a new challenge, a Championship challenge," he said of pre-season.

"Based on the stats they showed us – where we were and where we needed to be – we just upped everything and tried to replicate Burnley and the teams that went up, their running and their data.

"Once we get that, the football is separate, but it does help."

Town's incredible fitness levels and willingness to work has certainly shown in their first two games, with players running themselves into the floor in winning efforts.


And boss Kieran McKenna stressed after Saturday's win that the Blues know they must keep improving.

"We know the step up is a really, really big one," he said. "You can look at two wins and think that maybe we've taken to this league easily and taken the step up comfortably - but that's not been the case.

"This has been the two toughest games that I've had with this group. Last week was a completely different challenge to anything we've faced and probably the biggest and most difficult game of the large majority of the players' careers. Today was a big step up as well.



"In the dressing room we know how hard we've had to work for these results and we know how hard we're going to have to keep working.

"We're going to have to improve on where we are at the moment just to be able to compete every week."

It was very noticeable how we were wilting in the last 15 minutes against Ten man Sunderland while they looked stronger. Wasn't as evident against Stoke though.

Excellent stuff, though the real test is longevity and staying injury free. I can copy Mo Farah's training regime, but doesn't matter whether it's day 2 or day 10, because I'm not used to it, at some point I'll be burnt out and/or injured.

It's a big step up in effort from last season where we were afforded 65% of the possession for much of the season. This season we are down at 38.6% and while I think that will go up over time, it's a huge increase in load for the players and the fitness and conditioning staff really have to be on it so that we don't see a double figure long injury list from overuse injuries in the winter. So far it seems they've done an amazing job, especially compared to the last 15 year or so where we seem to have had more players out than available at times. Perhaps success helps, players like McGoldrick would magically feel better again if the team were performing and he was enjoying his football no doubt.