Kieran McKenna has insisted Ipswich Town will not give Blackburn Rovers a one-goal lead when their match is replayed.
Valerien Ismael labelled the English Football League’s decision to play the match again in full as ‘disgraceful’. Rovers are considering their options and could lodge an appeal against the decision.
Ipswich pushed hard for the game to be restarted and McKenna reiterated that it was the right decision.
He also revealed that any discussions about his side handing Rovers a goal are a non-starter.
“I don’t even think they’re worth justifying with a thought, to be honest,” he told the EADT.
“As I say, you’d be frustrated if you’re in the Blackburn situation because they’ll feel like they were in a good position to go on and get a result.
“But I don’t think there’s a decision to make or too much else to discuss. The conditions were unplayable, in my opinion, from probably about half-time onwards.
“The game could have been stopped earlier. That’s no responsibility of ours over the course of the season.”
McKenna did concede that he understood Ismael’s frustration but said a full replay was the ‘only decision’ possible.
“I understand the other side of it. They’ll be disappointed because they were in a stronger position in the game,” he continued.
“But football, over the course of a long history, has been 90 minutes plus extra time. If you’re going to say that it’s impossible to score late goals or it’s impossible to score with 10 men, then I think we’d have to rip up a lot of history books and the story of the game would be very, very different.
“We’ve already this season scored two goals deep into injury time. Blackburn have had three home games and in one of them they conceded two goals in injury time against Birmingham.
“There’s an awful lot of other things you could say about the context of the game and things like that. But I don’t think there’s anything to gain from it.
“It was, for me, the only decision. I understand you’d be frustrated on the other shoe if the shoe was on the other foot. But there was no other possible outcome.”
