To apply a bit of context to what has made Kieran McKenna so popular of late, you have to travel a decent distance back in time to find the last coach who made the same magnificent leap through the divisions. That would be Nigel Adkins and it might be an idea to ask him about the thanks he received for it.
He was once the brilliant young man. Like McKenna, he was emotionally intelligent and tactically strong. And like McKenna at Ipswich, Adkins found an unfavorable situation when he embarked on the peculiar business of sporting miracles in September 2010: Southampton were 22nd in League One.
That simply wouldn’t be enough for a club with a good infrastructure and considered favorites to be promoted under Alan Pardew a few weeks earlier. But what a journey they made: led by Adkins, then 45, Southampton were automatically promoted eight months later. League One being League One, it got some attention, but not much.
The same goes when they signed just three players and lost Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain to Arsenal before their next attempt. Overall, we thought being mid-table would be decent, as far as we think about it. But it turned out very differently: Southampton never left the top two and played sweet football until reaching the Premier League. How much we loved Adkins’ thread then, why it served him well.
With Southampton’s results heading in the right direction and 15th in the top flight, Adkins was sacked in January 2013 and replaced by someone brighter and younger: Mauricio Pochettino.
Ipswich manager Kieran McKenna has become one of the most sought-after managers in football.
Nigel Adkins embarked on a miraculous journey similar to McKenna, taking Southampton from League One to the Premier League in consecutive seasons between 2010 and 2012.
McKenna has done wonders at Ipswich, leading them back to the top flight after 22 years.
Adkins is now 59 and manages at Tranmere Rovers in League Two, with most of the intervening period spent in League One and the Championship. It’s been a great, honest career for a great, honest guy who remains the only manager I know who recites Dale Wimbrow’s poetry in times of stress. But if there is a message for McKenna within Adkins’ experience, it would be that the risks of staying can be as dubious as those that accompany a big move.
Given his willingness to talk to other clubs, we know McKenna is willing to hit while his iron glows red. That is to say, at 38 he is willing to stake a huge emerging reputation on madmen whose madness is no surprise at this point, if we excuse Brighton from that conversation.
Naturally, this is where the likes of Manchester United and Chelsea come in, because they seem to have reached the Baldrick stage of the Blackadder episode, where the current plan seems to be the one in store for when pencils up your nose don’t work.
According to sources who are well placed to know, his interest has been nurtured less diligently than at Brighton. The latter have had McKenna in their sights for most of the year.
They observed him, they studied him, they mentioned him regularly in successive talks since when Roberto De Zerbi still shone with a halo. They are that sensible and have gotten used to doing it well out of necessity. Whatever United and Chelsea may claim, their fascination is not believed to come from such a deep place, which tells us a lot about two strange clubs caught in strange times. No original observation can be made about football’s “now” culture. We know this. But over the last few years of the Premier League, has there been a stranger intersection in the arcs of a talented man on the rise and two desperate, sliding giants reduced to betting on promise?
In United’s case, the escalation of their interest was reported on Thursday, which coincidentally occurred around the time the remarkable story of Carlo Acutis and his posthumous sainthood emerged. If you’re not familiar with the details, the Catholic Church evidently has a means of investigating miracles and a threshold for determining how many you need for canonization: if two are traced back to you after death, you’re in the club. For United and Chelsea, these are two great seasons at Portman Road.
That they are even considering this route is surreal and possibly alarming for such decisive phases of their respective regimes.
United’s upcoming managerial appointment is Sir Jim Ratcliffe’s biggest decision to date at Old Trafford; For the Boehly-Eghbali axis of calamity, they need to show that there was coherent thinking on the “mutual” aspect of her divorce from Pochettino.
Todd Boehly (center) and Behdad Eghbali (second from right) want McKenna at Chelsea
However, Sir Jim Ratcliffe (right) will fight to bring the Ipswich manager to Manchester United.
Within those parameters, one must question the thickness of the line between brave and reckless, such is the combustible, suffocating and changing environment they consider appropriate for a manager without a top-level element to his name. It’s an incredibly wild game of danger.
None of which is an insult to McKenna. He has done a wonderful job at Ipswich. And Ipswich have done a wonderful job with him. Together they have risen at a speed that we thought unlikely at a time when parachute payments have closed much of the business in the Championship.
For McKenna, the risk of leaving would be greater than that of United or Chelsea. Clubs emerge from a fire; A burned out manager often stays burned out, especially younger ones. We can assume that supporting United when he was a child and then working there as a man would make him especially aware of the heat that is put on the club he is supposed to favor.
A great dilemma, without a doubt. And good for him for earning it; Who knows, it could even be the miracle that two clubs long for. But he is a smart man, because it takes a smart man to navigate from League One to these discussions. Just as an intelligent man might see pencils in a pair of those noses and seriously wonder if bigger is better.
For McKenna, the risk of leaving would be greater than that of United or Chelsea
Don’t trust Novak’s decline
When the end of sport comes, it can often be predicted in alarming episodes. For that reason, it might be tempting to read a lot into Novak Djokovic’s hiding in the third set against Tomas Machac on Friday and his continued failure to win a title in 2024.
It would also be a misplaced exercise in wishful thinking for those who wish to hasten the changing of the guard.
Even if his 37-year-old legs are starting to lose some elasticity, that mind will be worth at least three games in each set when the Slams begin.
It would be a misplaced exercise in wishful thinking to rule out Serbian star Novak Djokovic
Rooney’s fight
When we talk about the prevailing desire to go big and fast, there is something deliciously comforting about Wayne Rooney taking charge at Plymouth.
He may never make it in management, which has followed the opposite path to the one he took as a player. But his will to fight and fight is still there and he is deeply admirable when easier ways to find purpose wait on a broadcaster’s couch.
There is something deliciously comforting about Wayne Rooney taking charge of Plymouth.