Town boss Kieran McKenna has reflected on the impact the managers he worked under at Manchester United had on his career, and also looked at the progress some of the players he coached in the Red Devils’ academy have made since then.

The Blues host United, the club where McKenna was a first-team coach under Jose Mourinho, Ole Gunnar Solskjaer and Ralf Rangnick prior to joining Town in December 2021, having moved to Old Trafford in August 2016 initially as U18s coach before being elevated to working with the senior squad by Mourinho.

“I think I've said many times previously that they've all had an impact,” he said. “And it was a great privilege to work with the three of them.

“And, of course, [now Middlesbrough manager] Michael [Carrick] as well, being a really important part of that in his small interim spell, but more probably pertinently as a really close assistant as well over the few years I was there. 

“Jose was the one who gave me the opportunity to come into senior football, appreciated my work with the academy side there and saw a talent and a personality that obviously he warmed to, and I'll always be grateful for him for that.

“I really enjoyed the work with him and I think a manager like that, there's no way you can't pick up certain things from his personality and also from his methodology that you will use. 

“Ole, I've spoken about before, is someone who I'll hold dearly forever, really. A fantastic person and a fantastic man who did some really good work, but he has human qualities of the highest, highest level in and around football and away from football, and he is someone I hold in really high regard. 

“And Ralf was a really good insight for me because it was not that long before I went into a managerial career of my own, so to have the spell with him, seeing him come into a new group of players in a season, and with his methodology heavily influenced from the Red Bull model and his way of working that was pretty clear, to spend time with him and have insight into that model as well on a day-to-day basis was a big, big positive. 

“And again, I wouldn't speak about the coaches there without mentioning Michael because he’s someone who I hold in the highest regard and a big influence in my career.

“All great people all have had a good part to play in helping me be the manager that I am.

“But, as I'll always say, you also have to go your own way as you're developing as a coach, not just as a first-team coach, but from the very start you're developing the ways that you want to work and the things that you believe in and what you come to the table with eventually is an amalgamation of all those things.”

Moving onto the players he helped develop, who has he seen making the biggest impression on the game?

“From an academy perspective, Scott McTominay and Axel [Tuanzebe], who is here, which is really, really nice,” he said.

“Both were at the top end of the academy at that point, but really nice to have seen their journey and hopefully played little parts in their journey along the way.

“I had a couple of really good youth team years there really, working with a lot who are now professionals, Angel Gomez, Tahith Chong, Jimmy Garner, Brandon Williams, Ethan Laird, Dylan Levitt. I shouldn’t name names because I’ll end up missing out quite a few names but a lot of guys, who have gone on to have good professional careers at different clubs across the level.

“Of course, there’s only so many who can make into Man United’s team and stay in Man United’s team, Marcus Rashford is one who has currently done that, Scott until recently when he left, Kobbie Mainoo, who I got to know a little bit before I left, was maybe a 16-year-old who had just started to train with the first team a little bit and started to come up with the first team.

“[Alejandro] Garnacho was starting to have his impact on the youth team. There have been some top players there. The academy there is fantastic, I have to say, my time in the first team there is probably more publicly looked at, of course, but my couple of years in the academy there were a massive privilege to be part of the lineage there that’s brought through so many homegrown players and something that was a real privilege to be part of the academy.

“It’s always great to see so many of those players doing well and we’ve met a few of them this year at different clubs and, of course, we’ve got Axel here at our club, which I guess shows the diversity of pathways that you can have.

“But helping players go on and have a career and do well in their career or lives is always something you take pride in.”

McKenna says he and fellow ex-United alumni Martyn Pert and Lee Grant, his assistant manager and first-team coach, still keep in touch with people at their old club.

“There are quite a lot of staff and players in the different departments,” he said. “I'm not fantastic at keeping in touch when I'm working in a job, I have to say. I'm pretty much 100 per cent focused on where I'm currently at. 

“But there are some great people there and some really good relationships, and I've had lots of nice messages over the last couple of years as we've had our landmarks and our successes over the last couple of years right up to last weekend, and nice messages from people at the club. 

“So, there's still communication there with many people and I'm sure we'll see some familiar and friendly faces on Sunday and it would be good to catch up after the game.

“I know certainly on my side, and Martyn and Lee and Axel and other people here who have got previous history at that club, and the people on their side who know us will equally be fighting for their performance and their opportunity to get points on Sunday.”

Among those to stay in touch is Red Devils midfielder Bruno Fernandes. “Bruno's a really good guy and a fantastic, fantastic professional, I have to say,” McKenna continued. “Top, top professional in the building and a good human being.

“I know he's followed our progress really carefully over the last couple of years. Martyn is much better at keeping in touch with people than me, so he always informs me when Bruno's been texting and handing over ‘well-dones’ and things like that.

“And Lee Grant, I think, speaks to him a fair bit as well. So, he's a good guy, a very good player and a top professional. Of course, we're going to have to work hard to stop him on Sunday.

“And it's nice to have. It's not always that you leave a club and have so much fondness with the players and staff there. It's nice. I’ll enjoy seeing him on Sunday, but only after the game. And full eyes on trying to stop him being at his most effective best.”

Asked for his thoughts on what happened behind the scenes at United during those managers' time in charge, McKenna wouldn't be drawn.

“I'm sorry to disappoint but I've, of course, got lots of opinions and firm beliefs from my time at United of things that were done really, really well and things that were done not so well, but respectfully, my focus is on Ipswich, and I've got no desire to share those in the public realm,” he said.

“It's a great club, one that I've got a great affinity and fondness for and one that I'll always hope to see do well apart from when we compete and we're going to compete on Sunday, so my focus is just on Ipswich and preparing this club for this game and for everything that this season's bringing.”

As well as his spell working at the club, McKenna was a fan of United growing up, taken to his first game by his father in May 1994, a 0-0 draw with Coventry.

“The first game I went to was the last game of the season, 1994 when they won the league,” he recalled. “I think it was Coventry. So, yeah, it was probably the mid-90s and I would have been eight or nine. 

“It's well-known that I grew up a supporter. In the area of Ireland that I was growing up in it was kind of Man United or Liverpool, take your pick, then Celtic or Rangers.

“Good memories, of course, and a fantastic club, which is why it's got such a following worldwide.”

Did he have a favourite player? “In that team, it would have been, I don't know, I could take [Eric] Cantona into that team. Maybe in the next team it would have been Cantona and in that team it probably would have been Bryan Robson, who would have been coming out the very back end of it. So, I might say maybe Mark Hughes.”

Photo: Action Images

flykickingbybgunn added 18:03 - Nov 22 The excitement builds for Sunday. COYB
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grow_our_own added 23:02 - Nov 22 Grandson of god: There's probably a stone tablet hidden in the desert somewhere near Mount Sinai saying this would happen.
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