Ipswich Town boss makes Sunderland admission ahead of Championship opener as side prepare for Luton fixture

Ipswich Town boss Kieran McKenna says his coaching staff have already been assessing Sunderland’s strengths and weaknesses ahead of next month’s Championship opener.

The Tractor Boys will travel to the Stadium of Light on Sunday, August 6 for their first competitive fixture since promotion from League One last term.

"There are some players that everyone with an interest can guess will play if they’re fit at the start of the season," said McKenna when asked about the Sunderland fixture. "There are no big surprises.

"We always plan a little bit for each individual team. We started looking at Sunderland a bit already, looking at their strengths, where we can do well against them and where we can try to hurt them.”

Ipswich split their squad as they were beaten by Cambridge and Stevenage in friendly matches over the weekend.

McKenna’s side are now preparing for a friendly against newly-promoted Premier League side Luton on Tuesday, before facing RB Leipzig and Werder Bremen in the Innsbruck Cup later this week.

"That’s a very different game, a different opponent to Luton,” McKenna added when discussing the Sunderland match.

"Of course, you’re still managing the training load and managing the bodies, making sure that there’s no risk in picking people for Tuesday night. We have two more games this week as well.

"I don’t think it’s at a point yet where we’re picking a team that we think can go against Sunderland.

"Of course, we’ll be trying to get more of the players on the pitch that we think are likely to start.

"We plan to, as we have been over the last 18 months, be adaptable game-to-game in terms of picking players with certain strengths to help us against different opposition.”

Sunderland are set to play two more friendly matches before their meeting with Ipswich, after Tony Mowbray’s side returned from their pre-season US tour - which finished with a 4-2 win over North Carolina FC.

The Black Cats will face Spanish side Real Mallorca at the Stadium of Light on Saturday, July 29, before a trip to Hartlepool on Tuesday, August 1.