What does the future hold for McKenna after relegation? | OneFootball

What Next for McKenna and Ipswich? A Journey Measured in Grit and Grace

In the dying embers of another chastening afternoon at Portman Road, as Declan Rice wandered across the pitch and Arsenal’s players casually tapped fists and embraced in the satisfied manner of victors expecting nothing less, something else lingered. It was the sound. Applause. Not from the travelling supporters basking in another goal-flecked domination, but from the home fans.

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Ipswich Town had been beaten. Thoroughly. A 4-0 loss at home, to a side casually flexing its Champions League-bound muscles, had all but mathematically confirmed their relegation. Yet as Kieran McKenna approached the Sir Bobby Robson Stand, there was no outrage, no boos, no white scarves of protest — only applause.

Applause in defeat, belief in defiance

This wasn’t blind loyalty. It was perspective. Context. A kind of recognition. Ipswich’s story this season has not been one of failure, but one of stretched limits. McKenna’s side may be heading back to the Championship, but few inside the ground would call the campaign anything other than extraordinary — not for the points, or the position, but for how far they’ve come to get here.

“Mixed emotions,” McKenna said. “You’re so honoured and humbled by it, but you’re disappointed because you’d like to have given them a different outcome.”

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Perspective again. McKenna isn’t just managing a club. He’s helming a revival. A resurrection. One that has drawn unfashionable Ipswich back into national conversations, Premier League spotlights, and weekly reckonings with football’s elite.

So when Arsenal fans chanted, “We’ll never play here again,” it was less of a parting shot and more of a taunt against a club they didn’t expect to see this season at all.

McKenna’s process: from theory to trauma

What makes McKenna’s story fascinating is that he is a process guy in a results game. And results, cruel and ruthless, have begun to slip. After back-to-back promotions, after 20 years in the wilderness, Ipswich returned to the Premier League only to find that playing catch-up at this level is like running with bricks in your boots.

They’ve now conceded over 70 goals. They’ve won four times. Arsenal’s first-half performance was described by McKenna as “maybe the highest standard we’ve faced.” And for the first 30 minutes, Ipswich weren’t just outplayed — they were outclassed.

Even the red card — Leif Davis lunging in on Bukayo Saka — felt symbolic. A decision made in frustration, maybe even in desperation. Davis’s wild challenge didn’t represent Ipswich’s season, but it did reveal a crack. A team trying to compete above its weight, its energy now seeping, its legs heavy.

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McKenna doesn’t flinch. His responses remain thoughtful. Measured. “It (winning) doesn’t change loads for me… I’ve always believed you need some other gauges as to how you’re working.”

In the age of performative passion and tactical posturing, McKenna speaks like a man more interested in substance than optics. That’s why the club handed him a four-year deal last summer, despite the Premier League flirtations from other clubs. Ipswich were holding onto something rare: a manager not yet jaded, not yet cynical, still focused on building rather than branding.

Ipswich, in micro and macro

It’s impossible to separate McKenna from Ipswich now. Like Ramsey and Robson before him, McKenna’s tenure will be defined not solely by trophies or league position but by impact. Ramsey’s start in 1955 was grim — 2-0 home defeat to Torquay, local papers howling — and yet, within seven years, he’d turned Ipswich into champions of England.

Robson took longer. He was met with chants of “Robson out,” and still he stayed, learned, rebuilt.

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McKenna is the latest in that line. And while he’s not chasing statues or cult status, he is aware of the narrative. “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,” he said.

That word again: history. For Ipswich, history is both anchor and ambition. The weight of it can crush you, but it can also guide you.

And McKenna has found a way to modernise Ipswich without discarding its roots. The staff structure has been overhauled. The training ground is undergoing a £30 million upgrade. And still, he finds time for humility. “It was my first day as a manager but it wasn’t my first day on the school run,” he jokes about his 2021 debut.

What’s next: decisions and direction

So, what next for McKenna? What happens when the romanticism of promotion stories gives way to the grind of expectation?

This is not a manager who’s going to leap at the first offer from a middling Premier League club with a revolving-door policy. McKenna, when asked directly whether he’d be at Ipswich next season, offered a short but telling answer: “Yes. I’m still happy here.”

It didn’t sound like politicking. It sounded like belief.

And yet, this is football. There are clauses in contracts. There are agents, and interest, and temptations. The stock of a bright young coach rises and falls quickly. This time last year, McKenna was the name on everyone’s lips. Now, Ipswich’s struggle may have dulled the spotlight — but not the project. Not the potential.

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What’s intriguing is how McKenna sees the journey. Not as a linear rise, but as a series of bends, dips and jolts. “It’s the setbacks that generally have made me stronger. It’s the bumps in the road that fortify you.”

Few managers speak like that in public anymore. Fewer still mean it.

Pride, process and persistence

Ipswich may not be a Premier League town for much longer. The local council might have proudly plastered bins with slogans like “A Premier League town”, but the league table tells a starker truth.

And yet, what McKenna and Ipswich have built won’t vanish with relegation. The fans applauding after Arsenal’s demolition understood that. They weren’t clapping a scoreline. They were clapping an identity.

“You think Ipswich Town are going to wither away… Think again,” read one banner. That’s more than defiance — it’s faith. Not in the league, or the results, or even the squad. But in McKenna.

Because sometimes football isn’t about what happens next week, or next month. Sometimes it’s about what happens when you lose 4-0 and still walk across the pitch to applause. When your town still sees you as their best chance, not just of survival, but of significance.