Kieran McKenna | Close to signing long term deal to stay at Ipswich

Question for any regular Ipswich watchers. Do Ipswich hoof the ball unnecessarily like we do? Or do they prefer playing it on the ground?
 
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GreatDane said:
We wont know if he's good enough until he's actually here, but saying the club will devour him is foolish.
Most of the 'bad eggs' are out already and our new structure will serve to help both him and the club. He's has both managerial experience and experience guiding young players, which would serve our rebuild well.
If anything the timing to take a gamble on a truly rising star has never been better.
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I agree. We are the rock bottom right now, at least in the premier league era. The expectations are the lowest there have ever been. United fans are already a patient lot, who'll be more patient if they see that we are building something that is sustainable. There will of course be pressure, but it won't be to win things immediately. Plus, there are football people in charge now who can provide him with the tools needed to succeed. Even if he doesn't, we can move on to the next target. We have been shit for eleven seasons, what's one more. And it's not like there is a sure thing like Klopp on the horizon. The other options are journeymen like Poch or Tuchel.
 
McKenna to United. Maresca to Chelsea is my prediction.
 
Stobzilla said:
I wouldn't be so sure, he's clearly done a very good job whilst having to overhaul the playing staff at Boro last season. I would expect them to be regularly challenging towards the top end from next year.
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Except that's nowhere near as impressive as double promotions with a mid table league 1 side. I'm sure Carrick is a good coach but back to back promotions is special.
 
It is starting to feel like Chelsea have forced our hand a little, to the point where we are at least having have talks even if we haven't made a decision on ETH yet (which I think is unlikely).
 
matherto said:
Yeah but the managers that are 'proven' have proven to not be good enough and/or toxic so you can't win there either.
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Due to the club being run by idiots. None of the managers have been given the environment to succeed. The point of giving Ineos control over football decisions is so we don't continue down that path. This summer and the upcoming season should be different. Football people running a football club. Imagine the posibilities. Appointing a young inexperienced manager is a huge gamble and one that we should not be making this season. Before anyone says but Arteta... Arteta worked with the most successful manager this past decade. I'd expect him to do as well as he has.
 
The thing with McKenna is he has a great history of working with youth and our under 18s just won a treble, while our most promising players in the first team are all 21 or under.
Potential transfer targets of Olise and Neves are young too.
And the thing about younger players, they maybe don’t have as much ego or entitlement, so he could mould the squad easier.

It would definitely be an exciting appointment but yes, a risk.
 
It's a risk, but feels less risky than keeping with the guy who's been on a pretty sharp decline for 14 months. I'm not convinced that there is a 'toxic' dressing room that McKenna will have to deal with, and I think his profile fits the vague sketch of how INEOS operates. For all the niceties, it will be awkward to drop senior football people on Ten Hag and will inevitably undermine his authority. End of the day, he's done a bad job and cannot complain about the noise. No manager has had a season this bad for Manchester United in decades. United cannot just let rivals take a lead on signing McKenna out of politeness. It's not nice, but Ten Hag hasn't earned a fairytale ending.
 
Herman Toothrot said:
It's a risk, but feels less risky than keeping with the guy who's been on a pretty sharp decline for 14 months. I'm not convinced that there is a 'toxic' dressing room that McKenna will have to deal with, and I think his profile fits the vague sketch of how INEOS operates. For all the niceties, it will be awkward to drop senior football people on Ten Hag and will inevitably undermine his authority. End of the day, he's done a bad job and cannot complain about the noise. No manager has had a season this bad for Manchester United in decades. United cannot just let rivals take a lead on signing McKenna out of politeness. It's not nice, but Ten Hag hasn't earned a fairytale ending.
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heh
 
The Irish Connection said:
The thing with McKenna is he has a great history of working with youth and our under 18s just won a treble, while our most promising players in the first team are all 21 or under.
Potential transfer targets of Olise and Neves are young too.
And the thing about younger players, they maybe don’t have as much ego or entitlement, so he could mould the squad easier.

It would definitely be an exciting appointment but yes, a risk.
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I think this every time I read "He will get eaten alive by our players or they won't respect him because he's not big enough name" once this transfer window has closed there should only really be Rashford that is considered "a big player".

Young players just want to play good football, learn and improve. The egos come when they have won a lot and the players left will have won very little.

If Varane, Casemiro, Martial and Sancho are gone the three biggest remaining players would be Rashford, Mount and Bruno and the latter two seem to be exemplary professionals, teacher's pets almost.
 
peridigm said:
Due to the club being run by idiots. None of the managers have been given the environment to succeed. The point of giving Ineos control over football decisions is so we don't continue down that path. This summer and the upcoming season should be different. Football people running a football club. Imagine the posibilities. Appointing a young inexperienced manager is a huge gamble and one that we should not be making this season. Before anyone says but Arteta... Arteta worked with the most successful manager this past decade. I'd expect him to do as well as he has.
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I’m not sure what our club being a chaotic mess has to do with prospective ‘proven’ managers?

Well we know Tuchel might win a trophy but he’ll fall out with everyone and leave Jose style in short order.

We know Poch is thoroughly average and not a winner. He’ll play the youth a bit more but aside from that, meh.

De Zerbi is flavour of the month despite having a pretty bad end of season this year and I just don’t see it.

I can barely think if anyone else has been linked/suggested that is a ‘known’ quantity.

And yeah you can blame the people above them in Tuchel and Poch’s cases to a certain degree but it doesn’t detract from the fact that neither are good enough and have proven that

I just think there’s such a dearth of any managerial talent at the minute that we might as well give it a go. You only have to get it right once.
 
I think Ineos will be looking for an up and coming manager and McKenna fits the bill. A big name manager would insist on more control over the football side of things which they probably wont get. I cant see Tuchel taking kindly to being told what to do, or Poch for that matter.
 
Wouldn't be against McKenna at all. Lacks in experience but has done miracles at Ipswich.

What's clear is that with Poch, Tuchel and Mckenna all being available now is the time to move on from ETH. Any of these three would be very welcome after last season.
 
grahamo said:
I think Ineos will be looking for an up and coming manager and McKenna fits the bill. A big name manager would insist on more control over the football side of things which they probably wont get. I cant see Tuchel taking kindly to being told what to do, or Poch for that matter.
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I reckon the whole “British manager” thing will be a big factor for Ratcliffe too.
 
Raven said:
Except that's nowhere near as impressive as double promotions with a mid table league 1 side. I'm sure Carrick is a good coach but back to back promotions is special.
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Back-to-back promotions is special, but not so special that there isn’t a list of managers managing it. Checking that list for managers who went on to win leagues and European cups makes for slim reading though. Personally I remember Lou Macari best, taking Swindon from Fourth level to qualify for the premier level in consecutive seasons, only stopped from playing PL by a financial breach disqualifying Swindon and him from the promotion. He won the Scottish league with Celtic later I think, but that’s about it within football. Outside of football he has done a remarkable job in providing provisonal housing for homeless people and a decent job at dealing in fish and chips.

The PL league has seen four back-2-back promoted managers if I’m right: Joe Royle (Mn City), Paul Lambert (Norwich), Nigel Adkins (Southampton) are three of them, none looking like candidates to turn Man Utd into a giant again. Adkins was even fired on the back of his back-2-back.

The fourth deserves a special mention, Graham Taylor, as he led Watford to b-2-b promotions on two separate occasions, the first time doing a Macari from fourth to top level, culminating with a 2 place in the top division and a lost FA Cup Final. In between those, he led Aston Villa to a promotion as well! His top job in football, was manager for England, where he become notable for being ‘most continuously and brutally harassed England manager ever’, mostly just referred to as a vegetable.

it would seem that b-2-b promotions are so special that the capability they need has very little to do with the type of competence needed to run a club where 8th place in the PL is deemed a sackable offence.
 
Rojofiam said:
Makes my stomach turn already that some of the biggest Ole outers who called him a PE teacher, tactically inept and similar are now saying McKenna is a good tactician. If he gets hired, the hypocrisy will be even crazier, especially if he hits the ground running
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Sounds like prime cafe to me. Don’t you worry though, one bad result, the masks come off and they’ll turn on McKenna again.
 
roonster09 said:
Some of the posts from past are just awesome, so many clueless takes. People even being worried that Ralf might be spoiled by McKenna and should be sacked immediately.

The way people posted as if they had insights on what's happening on training ground is just something else. So much confidence on something they are clueless about.
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I honestly find it incredible that people think they’re clued in on training ground tactics based solely on clickbait from trash media outlets.
 
grahamo said:
I think Ineos will be looking for an up and coming manager and McKenna fits the bill. A big name manager would insist on more control over the football side of things which they probably wont get. I cant see Tuchel taking kindly to being told what to do, or Poch for that matter.
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Yes, just like Ratcliffe mentioned the thing about finding "The new Mbappe" rather than spending.
Starting from the top.
This echoes with McKenna links.
 
Grande said:
Back-to-back promotions is special, but not so special that there isn’t a list of managers managing it. Checking that list for managers who went on to win leagues and European cups makes for slim reading though. Personally I remember Lou Macari best, taking Swindon from Fourth level to qualify for the premier level in consecutive seasons, only stopped from playing PL by a financial breach disqualifying Swindon and him from the promotion. He won the Scottish league with Celtic later I think, but that’s about it within football. Outside of football he has done a remarkable job in providing provisonal housing for homeless people and a decent job at dealing in fish and chips.

The PL league has seen four back-2-back promoted managers if I’m right: Joe Royle (Mn City), Paul Lambert (Norwich), Nigel Adkins (Southampton) are three of them, none looking like candidates to turn Man Utd into a giant again. Adkins was even fired on the back of his back-2-back.

The fourth deserves a special mention, Graham Taylor, as he led Watford to b-2-b promotions on two separate occasions, the first time doing a Macari from fourth to top level, culminating with a 2 place in the top division and a lost FA Cup Final. In between those, he led Aston Villa to a promotion as well! His top job in football, was manager for England, where he become notable for being ‘most continuously and brutally harassed England manager ever’, mostly just referred to as a vegetable.

it would seem that b-2-b promotions are so special that the capability they need has very little to do with the type of competence needed to run a club where 8th place in the PL is deemed a sackable offence.
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Great post, interesting stuff.
 
Grande said:
Back-to-back promotions is special, but not so special that there isn’t a list of managers managing it. Checking that list for managers who went on to win leagues and European cups makes for slim reading though. Personally I remember Lou Macari best, taking Swindon from Fourth level to qualify for the premier level in consecutive seasons, only stopped from playing PL by a financial breach disqualifying Swindon and him from the promotion. He won the Scottish league with Celtic later I think, but that’s about it within football. Outside of football he has done a remarkable job in providing provisonal housing for homeless people and a decent job at dealing in fish and chips.

The PL league has seen four back-2-back promoted managers if I’m right: Joe Royle (Mn City), Paul Lambert (Norwich), Nigel Adkins (Southampton) are three of them, none looking like candidates to turn Man Utd into a giant again. Adkins was even fired on the back of his back-2-back.

The fourth deserves a special mention, Graham Taylor, as he led Watford to b-2-b promotions on two separate occasions, the first time doing a Macari from fourth to top level, culminating with a 2 place in the top division and a lost FA Cup Final. In between those, he led Aston Villa to a promotion as well! His top job in football, was manager for England, where he become notable for being ‘most continuously and brutally harassed England manager ever’, mostly just referred to as a vegetable.

it would seem that b-2-b promotions are so special that the capability they need has very little to do with the type of competence needed to run a club where 8th place in the PL is deemed a sackable offence.
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Totally fair points and thanks for the info. I was talking about the comparison between Carrick and McKenna though. Have you watched much of Ipswich as a matter of interest? If so, how do you think his style matches up against those names you've listed? I realize football has changed but were those managers playing a modern brand of football? McKenna seems to be incredibly highly rated in the football world, were those managers ever looked at in the same light?
 
Rojofiam said:
Makes my stomach turn already that some of the biggest Ole outers who called him a PE teacher, tactically inept and similar are now saying McKenna is a good tactician. If he gets hired, the hypocrisy will be even crazier, especially if he hits the ground running
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Remind me again which clubs are competing with each other to sign Ole?
 
Malone_Post said:
It’s LVG all over again. This club just goes round in circles. Proper Groundhog Day stuff.

This is exactly why the club (Ineos) should have either come out and publicly backed ETH with a new contact or sacked him/announced he was leaving. All this speculation and uncertainly leading up to a cup final, especially against a team as good as City, can’t be helpful. To have any chance tomorrow we need to be fully focused & switched on. These distractions won’t help.

And if they are waiting to see how the cup final goes before making their decision then there’s no hope.
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What distractions? You think the players and Ten Hag are all sitting around the TV watching the stories instead of preparing for the final?
 
Woodzy said:
It is starting to feel like Chelsea have forced our hand a little, to the point where we are at least having have talks even if we haven't made a decision on ETH yet (which I think is unlikely).
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100%

I think the plan was to let ETH have a final year whilst we laid the groundwork to get McKenna next season if he did well in the EPL.

I don't think anyone really predicted McKenna moving this summer, so Chelsea (and to a lesser extent Brighton) have forced us to move on our preferred target earlier. I think McKenna has a year left on his contract (a League 1 contract/salary), ETH has a year left on his contract...paying out the remaining contract on each manager is a cheap, low risk move for us really.
 
crossy1686 said:
What distractions? You think the players and Ten Hag are all sitting around the TV watching the stories instead of preparing for the final?
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I don't know about you but if I was a professional player, I'd be worried about what The Mirror and DailyMail are writing about me than city tactics
 
mu4c_20le said:
I don't know about you but if I was a professional player, I'd be worried about what The Mirror and DailyMail are writing about me than city tactics
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I know, biggest game of the season. I would work on our shape but this mirror story is really engaging, I’m going to sit this session out and wait for the update.
 
Giggsyking said:
He has won nothing. How can he install the mentality of winning a trophy if he himself never tasted it before. This will only backfire in few weeks when the result go south. We have actual winners who are not able to contain and deal with this pressure.
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He has technically won League 1 in his first season. What did Arteta win before he went to Arsenal? Jose before he went to Porto? Pep before Barca? Xabi Alonso before this season? They were all gambles. Of course it may not pay off, nobody is denying that.

You're missing the point. If they bring him in its because they believe in his potential. If we're to see that potential realised we have to give him time regardless of the results (provided they see the football going in the right direction). It's really that simple.
 
GreatDane said:
We wont know if he's good enough until he's actually here, but saying the club will devour him is foolish.
Most of the 'bad eggs' are out already and our new structure will serve to help both him and the club. He's has both managerial experience and experience guiding young players, which would serve our rebuild well.
If anything the timing to take a gamble on a truly rising star has never been better.
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Couldn’t agree more. Come on Jimbo, make it happen!
 
With The talk of not knowing if he is ready or not to step, would it in an ideal world be smarter if ineos hired him as nice manager for a season or two to allow him a smoother transition of stepping up a level at a club where the spotlight won't won't him qnd top 4 would be attainable for in that league.
 
It will be a huge test for McKenna if he is hired to coach our team. No top 4 is a sackable offense and he will be competing with 7 other clubs for those 4 spots.

It maybe a case of this massive job being too early for him. Hope he proves me wrong and does a Pep or Zidane and hits the ground absolutely flying.
 
The difference now is if we hire McKenna we'll have a proper footballing structure in place. If the likes of Berrada, Ashworth, Wilcox and so on want McKenna they will back him to the hilt and that means with player power too. If a player doesn't buy in then i'm sure they will be gone, not the manager, that's why I think it will be different to when he was here before.

There is no better time now to invest in a young upcoming potentially world class coach and taking a risk.
 
3KDré said:
He has technically won League 1 in his first season. What did Arteta win before he went to Arsenal? Jose before he went to Porto? Pep before Barca? Xabi Alonso before this season? They were all gambles. Of course it may not pay off, nobody is denying that.

You're missing the point. If they bring him in its because they believe in his potential. If we're to see that potential realised we have to give him time regardless of the results (provided they see the football going in the right direction). It's really that simple.
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What all these managers did have was a lot of experience being part of truly elite, high-performing club environments, whether as players or assistant managers.

Arteta was a key part of Pep's staff from the start of his tenure at City in summer 2016 until December 2019. He was part of building the centurions and saw the standards it took to achieve and maintain that level.

Mourinho was assistant to Robson at Porto and Barcelona and then to LVG at Barcelona. Those teams won a massive load of trophies, had some of the best players in the world, and competed at the very highest level.

Pep and Xabi both won everything as players and competed at the very highest level of football for much of their careers.

I think that's what you worry about with somebody like McKenna. To the extent he had formative experiences within a big club environment, it was a dysfunctional environment. That's the sort of experience that gives you insight into what not to do in terms of how a club is run, the type of culture you need, how the relationship with players should work, etc. While that might be valuable, its probably not nearly as valuable as having a deep immersion in a successful environment with a club competing at the highest level.
 
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