Ipswich Town manager Kieran McKenna insists he and his players 'won't waste any emotional energy' worrying about the form of leading Championship trio Leicester, Leeds and Southampton.

Southampton won 2-0 at West Brom last night, while Leeds triumphed by the same scoreline at Plymouth this lunchtime to go further ahead of Town in a high-quality automatic promotion race.

The Blues then responded with a hard-fought 2-1 victory at Swansea to move back to within a point of the third-place Saints (who they host on Easter Monday) and three of second-place Leeds (who they have a game in hand on).

Asked about the form of the sides his team are trying to chase, McKenna said: "I know it has zero impact on me and I actually don't think it does on the players either.

"Sometimes you worry with things like that, that it will infiltrate the group and they'll worry about other teams' results, but I honestly don't get any sense of that whatsoever.

"They share my feeling that we're doing incredible to be as competitive as we have been at this level. They know that's not where our expectations were or are. 

"They know that we laid out at the start of the season to perform as well as we possibly can, to impose our style of play, keep developing our culture and to do our utmost in every game.

"We reviewed those goals again in January and that's where our focus (still) is."

He continued: "Last year in League One that was our approach not to talk too much about points totals and saying things like 'we need to win two of our next three games'. Our approach last season, when we were the most dominant team in the league, was to just focus on our performances. We didn't speak too much about the other teams and the points total we might need.

"That was just as well because if we'd focused on what people say you typically need then it would have been 90 points for promotion last year. In the end we needed 98 points to get promoted and Sheffield Wednesday missed out on 96 points. 

"Again, if we had spent much time on it this year you would probably say 90 points is enough to get promoted from the Championship. But it's looking pretty certain that's not going to be enough.

"Look, our position is a little bit different to the other teams we're competing with this year. Last year, as much as we never mentioned it, I was more conscious of Plymouth's results or Sheffield Wednesday's results. I had more glances at the table.

"I can honestly say that this year, in Leicester, Leeds and Southampton, we're up against three of the strongest teams in Championship history, teams that are abnormally strong for this level. Leicester are probably going to break the Championship (points) record. 

"We're not going to waste any emotional energy comparing ourselves to that and getting upset if any of those teams win on a Saturday. We expect them to win. 

"Where we've come from last season, where they've all come from, we know, internally, there is no pressure on ourselves. We're just enjoying each game as it comes. We're not going to spend any time worrying about those teams."

Asked if he preferred being the underdog in this promotion fight, McKenna replied: "No, we'd rather have parachute payments, we'd rather have extra Financial Fair Play wriggle room, we'd rather have been able to add to the squad more in the summer and we'd rather have been able to add more to the squad in January. That's the honest truth of that.

"It is what it is. We've got a fantastic group here that have humility and spirit. Consistency can be a big benefit. We're making the very best of our situation. 

"Would we rather have more good players though? Would the players in the dressing room rather have more players of a really high calibre come in and share the load with them? If you asked them, I think they would all say yes."