For the first time this season, the Blues boss named an unchanged starting XI following Wednesday night’s 2-1 win at Bournemouth.
Town led 1-0 at the break, courtesy of Liam Delap’s poacher’s finish, but faded after the restart.
McKenna replaced Nathan Broadhead with Jack Taylor in the 65th minute, Wolves equalised through Pablo Sarabia in the 72nd minute and it wasn’t until the 81st minute that the Blues boss made a quadruple switch – Leif Davis, Conor Chaplin, Jaden Philogene and George Hirst introduced for Conor Townsend, Axel Tuanzebe, Jens Cajuste and Liam Delap.
The visitors soon went on to grab a winner through Jorgen Strand Larsen, with Ipswich now staring down the barrel of Premier League relegation with seven games to go.
On his decision to name an unchanged team, McKenna said: “The players were keen to go again and I think the set-up was well suited to the challenges that Wolves were going to bring.
“We competed really well in the first half, but we weren’t able to maintain our energy levels, which is to be expected after the effort that the players into the game on Wednesday night (2-1 win at Bournemouth) and some of the physical challenges that we have in the squad at the moment.”
Asked, therefore, why he left the bulk of his changes until so late, he explained: “Conor Townsend had a hamstring issue, so he had to come off.
“We wanted to get Jaden, Conor and Hirsty on as three fresh attacking players on the pitch, but we didn’t feel we could do it too early because Wolves were a threat throughout the game and the second half. They’re a really, really big team, so set plays were a big issue.
“We got to the 80th minute and we knew a draw definitely wasn’t going to be a result that we wouldn’t be happy with. We tried to go with everything to get the win but we weren’t able to turn the momentum around and they got the second goal.”
