Kieran McKenna tipped for Man Utd job in 3-5 years by ex-Red Devils player | OneFootball

One former Manchester United player has tipped Ipswich Town boss Kieran McKenna to become the club's manager in the near future.

The teams around them have started to put the pressure on, but Ipswich still have their promotion fate in the palm of their hands.

They are now in third place, thanks to Leeds United's win over Middlesbrough on Monday night, and they could extend their gap to the Tractor Boys if they beat Queens Park Rangers on Friday night, but Town's games in hand will still mean that they can take that second place position back, if they win against Hull City and Coventry City.

Ipswich should be used to the pressures of needing to keep winning at this stage of the season in order to secure automatic promotion. They went on a brilliant run at the end of last season which saw them secure second in League One, guaranteeing their spot in the second tier for this campaign.

They only lost one league game in the 2023 section of the 22/23 season, and they handed out some brutal batterings, including two 6-0's and four 4-0's.

One former Man United player was on the end of one of those one-sided beatdowns, and he doesn't see why Ipswich's Northern Irish boss won't be the manager of their former club soon.

Ex-Man Utd player predicts Old Trafford job for Kieran McKenna

Demetri Mitchell, who came through the club's youth ranks, and now plays for Exeter City in League One, believes that, from what he has seen of McKenna, that he will be in the home dugout at Old Trafford at some point in the future.

He was part of the City side which lost 6-0 to the Tractor Boys on the day that the club booked its return trip to the Championship, after four seasons in the third division.

On Wednesday night, Mitchell took to X to express his feelings about Ipswich, and their boss, and made some bold claims about them.

"McKenna will manage Man United in 3-5 years save this tweet."

Kieran McKenna links to the Man Utd job

There is some uncertainty around the future of current Red Devils boss Erik ten Hag after a very unconvincing FA Cup semi-final win over Coventry City, in which they lost a 3-0 lead in the space of 25 minutes and scraped through on penalties.

The change in leadership at the top of the football operations side of the club has also created doubts about his job security, and the Town manager has been one of the names that has been linked with taking over.

Football Insider reported that there was: "concrete," interest in him, and that people inside Old Trafford see the Northern Irishman as a future manager of the club.

Stars are aligning for McKenna to become Man Utd manager

One of the things that is making the likes of United hesitant about replacing ten Hag is the current lack of standout candidates. The only seemingly available one this summer was Xabi Alonso, who has committed his future to Bayer Leverkusen, and he would've joined Liverpool over Man U anyway because of the upcoming vacancy at Anfield.

So Sir Jim Ratcliffe and co may be holding off on pulling the trigger until somebody obvious appears, and then they can go all in for them.

It would be a big risk to go for McKenna now, because of his relative inexperience in the role. This is only his second full season as a manager, so he probably would need a couple more years before any of the biggest clubs takes a punt on him.

But, if he can get Ipswich up to the top flight, and then stabilise them there, that would surely be a good enough CV to at least tempt Man United into thinking about him, especially given his existing relationship with the club.

When that time comes, United may have already found their new man, or ten Hag may have proved himself to be the right man going forward, but it does feel like everything is falling into place for this to happen in the near future, as Mitchell said.