Jaden Philogene’s brilliant goal after only one minute and 44 seconds, the one-time Potters loanee’s seventh of the season making him the Blues’ top scorer, was enough to see Town to the three points and up to fourth in the table.

“I really enjoyed the game, to be fair. I thought it was a really, really good game,” McKenna said.

“Both teams certainly contributed. We scored a brilliant team and individual goal to start the game off.

“Then I thought Stoke played really well in the first half. They came and had a real, real go and full credit to them, I think they came here and had a real swing at it and pressed high.

“That meant there was a lot of space and we almost got through a lot but we also probably rushed it too often because there was so much space.

“We went for the goal every time and gave the ball back to them a little bit quick and then they were moving the ball well and causing some problems, and we really needed to dig in, but the boys did that.

“And I thought the second half was a really good performance. We played well with the ball, we started to make some extra passes, played through the pressure, defended well and had chances to counter and probably the only thing that kept the game alive was not getting the second goal.

“I thought it was a much better performance than Saturday, to be honest, where we went and scored two goals in the second half and won 3-0. I thought today the flow of that was much greater, we just didn’t manage to finish one of our moves off.

“When you don’t do that, you have to see it out at the end and the game’s always open. We managed and did that bit well and the crowd was outstanding and really gave us the push we needed as well. A good night’s work.”