Boss Kieran McKenna has outlined a blueprint for turning a club around, which perhaps may be of interest to incoming Manchester United manager Ruben Amorim, who takes charge of his first game at Portman Road on Sunday.

McKenna has masterminded a remarkable turnaround at Town since taking over at Portman Road in December 2021 with the Blues climbing from League One into the Premier League.

While the starting points and expectations are at a different level, United, who currently sit 13th in the Premier League, are similarly in a position well below where their fans would hope to see them.

Asked how to get a floundering big club up and running again, McKenna said: “I don’t think I can speak universally for every big club. I know how I did it here.

“It was League One but I think we still had 30-plus senior players, we’d signed 19 players the summer before, there had been a lot of upheaval, there were a lot of unhappy players in terms of their position in the squad, and the team wasn’t anywhere near where it wanted to be or where it should be, really. I think United would probably say some similar things at the moment.

“Everyone will have their own approach to it. My approach was one day at a time, developing the culture at the training ground first and foremost, that’s everything from how we trained, how we live, how we interact with each other, the buildings, the infrastructure, the flow of our working day.

“Developing a playing style, developing an identity, both from a tactical perspective but also from a mental perspective of how we wanted to be as a group and as a team.

“And then taking it one game and one step at a time and fighting to be better in the next training session, trying to be better in the next game, focus on doing the right things in our performances daily and weekly in the games and step-by-step you’ll start moving in a positive direction.

“That’s probably been a pretty short summary of the journey here and I’m pretty sure the manager there will work in the way that he believes in to get United back to a better position than they are now.”

Like McKenna, Amorim is university educated, even taking in a spell shadowing former United boss Jose Mourinho while studying for a masters' in high-performance football coaching at the University of Lisbon prior to McKenna’s time working with the first team at Old Trafford.

The Blues’ boss was asked whether that sort of background is now standard for modern Premier League managers.

“I think it’s unfair to say just the modern coaches because there are lots of coaches who have been doing it a long time, who are very studious, who like to look into all different aspects of performance and like to study and try and really understand the game on a really, really deep level. I think that’s a really big part of being successful at the job,” he said.

“And that’s certainly the approach that I try to take. The manager at Man United now has had a fantastic track record over the last few years, has done a terrific job at not just Sporting Lisbon in short periods at clubs before that, had a massive success in developing a winning team, developing players and developing the playing style.

“I’m sure he’s going to have a good impact at the club and I’m sure will have a successful time there, but our focus isn’t too far beyond Sunday and making sure that we try and make it as difficult as possible start as possible.”

TWTD

MK1 added 17:29 - Nov 22 Keep it to yourself until after Sunday Kieran.
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flykickingbybgunn added 17:46 - Nov 22 When did you last read a McKenna interview that you were not impressed with ? I cant remember the last.
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BuckieBlue added 19:22 - Nov 22 I agree flykicking. What comes across here is that from the outset KMcK treated everyone as valuable humans. Give that respect to people and you bring the best out in them. The result we are now playing in the PL!
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Len_Brennan added 07:48 - Nov 23 We could do without him sounding so assured & ready to take on a big club at Premier League press conferences! There's a good chance that the Spurs job will be up for grabs in the summer, if not before that; hard to think that McKenna would not be, at the very least, in their top 3 of potential replacements. As long as he sees out the season to keep us up, I guess I can live with that reality.

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Edmundo added 11:16 - Nov 23 Before words like culture and identity were used, it was called the "Ipswich Way" by Sir Bobby, and equivalents at other successful clubs like Liverpool and Celtic. The difference is that players are expected to perform to such a high level now, there's no room for the shenanigans we hear about from Butch and others.
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