Kieran McKenna is faced with an unenviable decision: stay or go?
After leading Ipswich Town to back-to-back promotions, he has the opportunity to take his side into the Premier League as the next test in his young managerial career. But the suitors have come calling, with McKenna on Chelsea’s shortlist and the former Manchester United assistant a serious contender for Brighton.
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Last season Vincent Kompany chose to stick when his stock was high after getting Burnley promoted from the Championship in style. Life in the top flight was decidedly harder as they were relegated this season in 19th place with just 24 points. Just when it looked like the former Manchester City captain’s glittering reputation might have taken a hit from such a drop off in fortunes, this week he has been linked with the job at Bayern Munich.
Leicester City boss Enzo Maresca finds himself in a similar position. Having been Pep Guardiola’s assistant manager at City, he is also a candidate for Chelsea after Mauricio Pochettino’s departure. After guiding Leicester to the Championship title this year, the Italian’s style of football has made him a popular option among clubs looking for a new manager despite his side letting slip a 10-point lead in the promotion race since January.
McKenna, though, is the most intriguing manager of the lot. Refined, calm, a master tactician — despite Manchester United fans’ opinions of him while he was part of Jose Mourinho and Ole Gunnar Solskjaer’s respective coaching staffs at Old Trafford — the 38-year-old can become an elite manager. It was recognised at the League Managers Association awards on Tuesday night when he won the Manager of the Year award, beating both Guardiola and Arsenal’s Mikel Arteta.
His work at Ipswich has been transformative. Under the new ownership of Gamechanger20 since 2021, Ipswich have been a more organised club off the pitch. This does not take away from his achievements with a well-coached team. After a period of stagnation with successive mid-table finishes in League One, McKenna arrived and turned Ipswich into a team stronger than the sum of its parts, with the ability to tear apart any team put before them with their rapid attacking style.
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He is likely to be backed in the transfer window, too. Ipswich have shown that they are willing to spend money on the right players to achieve their goals. They did so in League One, when their published accounts show they were the league’s biggest spenders on wages (accounting for £91 of every £100 of their income). Last summer, they recruited George Hirst from Leicester City and Jack Taylor from Peterborough United while in January they added Ali Al-Hamadi from Wimbledon. Further additions will be needed again if they are to compete in the Premier League. The struggles of last season’s promoted trio of Burnley, Sheffield United and Luton Town have shown how big the gap is now.
Kompany is an interesting comparison. After getting Burnley promoted with a talented squad, he had interest from seven clubs including Chelsea and Tottenham Hotspur last summer but instead took on the challenge of keeping them in the Premier League this season. It looked like the wrong decision, although the recent interest in him from Bayern shows that there is credit in the bank for young managers who stick with a project.
But McKenna’s Ipswich are not Kompany’s Burnley. The job of getting a languishing team out of the third tier and into the first is much trickier than turning around a recently relegated team to take them back up to the Premier League again. McKenna has so much credit in the bank that he can afford to stick with Ipswich and have a difficult season and still have the pick of the jobs on offer to him in six, nine or 12 months. Few people will expect Ipswich to stay up next season anyway. Even so, while Kompany’s efforts at Burnley might be fondly remembered, McKenna has entered folklore for what he has achieved in Suffolk.
As some measure of that, the club shop at Portman Road was selling Hawaiian shirts with his face on them in the season’s final weeks. Fans were talking about the Northern Irishman earning the right to pull up a chair to the table of club managerial greats Sir Bobby Robson, Sir Alf Ramsey and George Burley if he pulled off another promotion — which he did. Staying at a place where a manager is already so loved must be attractive. Ipswich are capable of more than just trying to stay up if they get this right.
The problem, if you are an Ipswich fan, is what a club like Brighton offers as they look for a replacement for the outgoing Roberto De Zerbi. Of the clubs rumoured to be in the running, they have the most to offer. ‘Big Six’ jobs will always appeal for the prestige or the money. But a club with a good off-field structure, a solid reputation and the ability to act as a sensible step in a still fledgling career… it all sounds familiar to fans at Portman Road.
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Leaving Ipswich for the chaos of Chelsea makes less sense — if that ever factors into a manager’s thinking when they decide this. Ipswich will be prepared for the eventuality of McKenna leaving, they have known they have a prized asset for a while now. Crystal Palace showed strong interest earlier in the season before appointing Oliver Glasner and now the list is longer.
McKenna should stick with Ipswich or take a job at a club outside the interested parties among the Big Six. He is a young manager who deserves an environment to thrive at this stage of his career — whether he sticks or twists, expect the big guns to be lining up for him again in the future.
(Top photo: Chris Radburn/PA Images via Getty Images)