Boss Kieran McKenna says it’s his experience that setbacks make you stronger and that everyone at the club will use this season’s all-but-certain relegation from the Premier League as fortification to keep moving forward.
The Blues’ return to the Championship after one season looks set to be confirmed at St James’ Park, Newcastle on Saturday afternoon.
Speaking at Friday’s press conference ahead of Arsenal’s visit, McKenna was asked whether he will be a better manager for this season’s experience.
"I think so, I’d like to think so,” he reflected. "I think if any of us - staff members, manager, players - if you don’t come out of this season wiser, stronger, better, then you’ve probably not tackled the challenge in the right way.
"I think I am and I certainly will be and I think that’s been the case right the way through my career.
"When you do well at something, people always think that it’s been a straight linear progression but my experience, whether that’s as a player or as a coach, it’s the setbacks which have generally made you stronger, have made me stronger.
"It’s the bumps in the road that sort of fortify you to keep moving forward and I think that’s what everyone at the football club plans to use this bump in the road as.”
Quizzed on how he deals with those bumps in the road, he added: "There’s lots of different ways. I think the biggest way is to stick to your values, how you want to behave, how you want to conduct yourself day to day, how you want to relate to your staff, how you want to relate to your players, how you want to represent the football club in the right way.
"These things are in a lot of ways a lot easier to do when you’re winning all the time and not so easy to do when you’re not winning.
"For me, it’s trying to stick true to the values of how I want to be as a person, first and foremost, and if you do that, then I think you represent yourself and the group and the club in a much better way. That’s been the challenge and that’s how we’ve tried to tackle it.”
The Blues have won only four of their 33 games this season but McKenna says he doesn’t need the validation that victories bring, even if they make his job easier and maintain a positive mood in the camp.
"Not massively,” he reflected. "Probably not as much as players need it, or certainly new players need it, and certainly not as much as the external perception is.
"I think I’ve always trusted my own gut on whether I believe I’m working well, whether the staff’s working well, whether we’re working to our maximum, whether we’re helping the players to the best of our ability and working to our values and working to our qualities.
"And if we do that, I’ve always been pretty good at knowing that the result of a football match can be determined by a lot of things outside of your control.
"It doesn’t change loads for me. Of course, you feel a lot better and it helps the mood but in terms of validation, no.
"Of course, it’s a professional industry and you need to pick up results, but I’ve also believed that you need to have some other gauges for how you believe you’re working and I believe that the staff, myself and the players have done a lot of good work this year and work that will hopefully stand us in good stead.”
McKenna has now been in his role at Town for almost three and a half years having taken charge in December 2021. How does he compare the manager that gave his first team-talk ahead of the 1-0 victory over Wycombe in his inaugural game in charge and the boss he is now?
"I’d like to think mostly the same,” he said. "It was my first day as a manager but it wasn’t my first day on the school run. I was the best part of a decade and a half into my coaching journey at that point, so I think most things were pretty well established in terms of how I wanted to train, be with players, how I wanted my team to play.
"There’s no doubt that you’re stronger for the rounding of the experiences. Taking over a team where they were in the middle of League One and then in the last three seasons we’ve had a season where on a personal level you’re in charge of a really big club in the division with a good budget for the division and a great fanbase, and that brings its own challenges. Of course, that was successful.
"Then last season we were in charge of a big club but really bottom-half, bottom-third budget and low expectations but we managed to do something incredible, something of that ilk hasn’t been done very, very often.
"And then this year you’re in charge of the team that has the smallest wage budget by far, hasn’t been in the Premier League for 22 years, but still has a great history and tradition and pride in the football club, and we tried to attack the division as well as we can.
"And that’s a completely different challenge to two seasons ago in League One in terms of the way that you can play, certain things you can ask of players and the level of the opponent relative to the strengths of your team has flipped completely in the last couple of years.
"That’s been a great challenge for me on a personal level and we’ve tried to do the right things and do it in the right way along the way.
"But I think compared to day one, I’d like to think I’m still the same person, same values but I’ve had an incredible range of experiences and everyone at the football club has been through the same.”
This weekend Burnley confirmed their return to the Premier League after one season in the Championship along with Leeds, who had been away for two seasons, and Town are already being talked about in terms of a promotion campaign in 2025/26.
"It’s a bit early, I have to say!” McKenna smiled. "I understand it, but we’re thinking about Arsenal. There aren’t too many other thoughts past that.
"Of course, planning for next season has already started, whether we’re 12th in the league or 18th in the league you need to plan ahead. Those conversations at this time of the season, they happen.
"The narrative around newly promoted teams, newly relegated teams, and the evidence is there, but we’ll deal with that challenge as and when it comes.
"We know in football nothing’s guaranteed and nothing’s given but we’ll see what the next challenge is, but in the bigger picture, whatever the next challenge is for the football club, we’ll try and tackle it with a lot of humility and with the right values.”