Can We Keep Our Kieran McKenna?

This is a bit of a loaded question. Few of us knew too much about him when he came here but we know an awful lot about him now. Sadly, so do a lot of other football people! So the question is, will his success come at a cost to us? Can we keep him?

In 93 matches with McKenna at the helm Town has only lost 13 times, and never by more than one goal. He has a win ratio success rate of 60.2%!  After automatic promotion in his first full season in charge, Ipswich are now second in the Championship table, having won 9 of their first eleven games. Town are six points ahead of the chasing pack and with  a game in hand! It is hard to believe that this is his first job in management but 13 years of coaching with some of the biggest names in football certainly helped! COE Mark Ashton said he knew within a sentence that McKenna was the right man for the job, and his judgement has been impeccable.

Unfortunately, success brings its own problems and the more successful Town are, the more he is noticed by the Premier sharks. A price tag of 4 million quid means nothing to these rich clubs upstairs, so when it comes to, should he stay or should he go,  will depend almost entirely on the man himself. Is he here for the long haul?

Well, I cannot say with any certainty of course, but I think he could be. In the modern game, there are very few managers who have any patience because, of course, football clubs have very little patience with them as well. If a club goes through a losing patch they quite often lose their manager too. The difference here perhaps is, that we have only known the good times with McKenna so far and I was informed by an insider at the club that a gentleman’s agreement was made between Ashton and McKenna. It was not written into the contract, but the understanding was that this was to be a long term project. If this is the case, then we are very lucky because Mckenna appears to be  an honourable man. Anyway, this project has only just started. This is phase one!