Portman Road will be a blaze of vivid blue this Saturday lunchtime.
After 22 years away, Ipswich Town are in the Premier League once more and Arne Slot’s new Liverpool are the visitors. It’s an old fixture, yet modern. It tells us Ipswich are back.
This is more than a match, this is an occasion – for the club, the supporters, for the stadium you can see from the train station, plum in the middle of town. Fans will gather and touch base with the two statues outside the ground – one of Alf Ramsey, one of Bobby Robson.
Ipswich Town’s two legendary managers are permanent reminders of what a provincial club like this has done and can be – Ramsey took Ipswich from the third division in 1955-56 to the League title in 1961-62. It was the club’s first ever season in the top division in England. Then he did a bit with the national team.
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Robson spent 13 years at the club, leading Ipswich to their one and only FA Cup success in 1978 and to their one and only European trophy, the Uefa Cup, in 1981. Ipswich were a top-flight and European authority. Robson, too, then did some time with England.
When Ramsey arrived in August ‘55, he was 35 years old; when Robson arrived in January 1969, he was 35 years old. In December 2021 this coincidence was mentioned when a young man from Co Fermanagh walked through the blue doors of Portman Road. Ipswich were once again playing in the third division, where Ramsey had found them 66 years earlier. And Kieran McKenna was 35 years old.
Since that first day, McKenna has somehow managed to justify and neutralise the premature extrapolations flowing from such similarities. He has done so by turning an almost depressed club with flatlining players into a coherent upward unit on and off the pitch.
At 35, with no former frontline management experience, but with years of on-the-grass coaching behind him, McKenna has displayed the maturity of managers much older, and without hype; simultaneously, at 35 he has revealed the energy and drive of players much younger.
McKenna, now 38, has this club and those players facing Liverpool rather than Gillingham. Next Saturday it’s Manchester City away. Two years ago this month Ipswich’s first away game of the season was at Forest Green Rovers.
“It’s an honour to be in the same sentence as them,” McKenna said of Ramsey and Robson in his first club interview 30 months ago. “Maybe it shows a bit of the history of Ipswich, prepared to work with a young manager and build over a period of time.”
McKenna spoke then of his task as not being “a quick fix”. It was an understandable opinion. He was succeeding Paul Cook with Town 12th in League One and about to lose an FA Cup-tie 2-0 at Barrow. Beyond the immediacy of that situation was a longer-term slump that followed 2002′s relegation. It endured for over two decades.
There were occasional upswings – the optimism accompanying the appointment of Roy Keane in 2009, Mick McCarthy getting the team to the Championship play-offs in 2015 and then a brief revival and connection under Paul Lambert in 2018. Even as the club dropped down to play third division football for the first time since Ramsey, attendances actually rose.
But the atmosphere faded as the anticipated bounce-back to the Championship became instead four seasons in League One with not even the play-off places reached in the first three of them. The ownership of Marcus Evans grew steadily more unpopular; Ipswich were not being milked, as a club it just dried up.
When McKenna referenced Ramsey and Robson in that initial interview, he acknowledged change in eras and the modern downturn – “I’m realistic enough to know the club is in a very different place now”; then he added: “At the same time it’s an inspiration to follow two such fantastic men and leaders.”
On the latter subject he said he wanted to “develop myself as a leader” and after going into coaching following the early end of his playing career at 22, he thought he was ready. He was at Manchester United, of course, so Ipswich was a switch in direction in several aspects. He had worked at Tottenham, where he had a promising playing career cut short by a persistent hip problem; at United he had worked under José Mourinho, Ole Gunnar Solskjaer and a few weeks under Ralf Rangnick.
“I wanted to become the very best coach I could possibly be, after that a manger. I’m extremely ambitious. I wanted to do it young. I always had it in my head that 35 was the age I wanted to be ready for that opportunity.”
Of losing that possible career as a Spurs midfielder, he was frank: “You have challenges in life, it’s about how you take it on ... I very quickly moved on ... You can say it’s worked out well. I can’t have any complaints ... The benefit of finishing your playing career early through injury is that you get a big head start over people who play for more years.”
McKenna had in his head a high-tempo, high-pressing attacking side, who would push full-backs up, win possession in the opposition half, cut the ball back from the byline and shoot, shoot, shoot. Lots of coaches have the same idea, the challenge is translating the theory into practice. This is what he has done so impressively.
In his first full season Ipswich won automatic promotion from League One and scored 101 goals. They conceded the fewest, losing only four of 46 League One games. Fourteen draws meant they finished second, but the team was establishing an identity.
In McKenna’s second full season – last season – once again Ipswich finished second, six points clear of Leeds United in third. It was a convincing margin secured by being the division’s top scorers. There were again few losses and many draws; they scored 26 goals in the last 15 minutes of games, the division’s best and more than a quarter of the overall total. In a 4-2-3-1 system McKenna was active with substitutions, making double and treble changes among his front four, a consequence of which was Ipswich had the most goals and assists from substitutes.
That reveals stamina and attitude. McKenna has talked about the “massive disparity’ in physicality between League One and the Championship and it will be instructive to see how his players handle the sheer speed of the Premier League – perhaps five of the outfield 10 who started at Forest Green will be on view against Liverpool.
There are additions – Kalvin Phillips arriving on loan from Manchester City on Thursday and he was followed by striker Sammie Szmodics from Blackburn yesterday. With Adam Idah leaving Norwich for Celtic, it’s been a good few days for Republic of Ireland strikers.
Six others have been signed this summer so far, illustrating Ipswich’s rise is not down solely to a bright young manager. Gamechanger 20, the American subsidiary of an Ohio pension fund who took over the club eight months before appointing McKenna, have provided generous funding.
In March US-based Bright Path Sports acquired 40% for £105m. (Matt Holland has been brought on to the board.) The stadium and training ground have been upgraded. Ipswich Town look as professional and ambitious as their manager.
Investment – one of Robson’s favourite words – is crucial to progress and player wages have a direct bearing – Phillips was on a reported £150,000 per week at City. In late January, following a shock FA Cup exit at home to non-League Maidstone, Ipswich recruited Kieffer Moore on loan from Bournemouth, covering the bulk of Moore’s estimated £40,000 per week. Some Championship rivals could not or would not do that and watched as Moore scored six in his first nine matches. When there was a sequence of draws in April as automatic promotion hovered, Moore scored the opener in a crucial win at Coventry in the penultimate game of the season.
That victory meant Ipswich only had to beat relegated Huddersfield on the last day to go up, which they did. One investment helped bring access to the riches of the Premier League, which in turn has led to the signing of Omari Hutchinson from Chelsea for £20m, a club record, and to McKenna staying when he was coveted by other clubs. The hard realist behind McKenna’s soft eyes understands football’s economic cycle.
Still, Ipswich are odds-on to go down. Due to their long time away from the top flight and the spotlight, they will be this season’s Premier League novelty. They are not quite Blackpool from 2010 or Luton Town from last season, but of fresh intrigue.
Given City have won the last four league titles and six of the last seven, many say novelty is needed. City face those 115 charges, which will part of season 2024-25.
Then there is Arne Slot at Liverpool, Enzo Maresca at Chelsea and Fabian Hurzeler at Brighton – he is 31. Can Arsenal reach the 90-point mark? What will Dominic Solanke do to Tottenham? Will Aston Villa be able to cope with the Champions League? Can Erik Ten Hag’s Manchester United build on the FA Cup final? Points deductions? VAR and the revised handball law?
These are questions. Another is: can a man from Enniskillen shake things up? He sounds ready, his coaching ability and the funds behind Ipswich are reasons to answer the last question positively.
“I am sure the stadium will look fantastic and the supporters will be brilliant,” McKenna said in his first pre-Premier League match press conference.
“The group has worked so hard for the opportunity we have in front of us this season. It is great excitement. We know the scale of the challenge and what is ahead of us. But it’s going to be a wonderful season.”
